Case Study: The Higher Degree

Having laid out our understanding of inquiry-based professional learning, from its historical roots to its essential qualities to the current tensions, contradictions and competing agendas in undertaking inquiry-based professional learning in today's age, in this chapter and the one which follows, we present two case studies of inquiry-based professional learning in action - one individual case, relating to the undertaking of a higher degree; and one systemic case, relating to the work developed within a school network configured around the taking of an inquiry approach.

In this chapter, Nicole (one of us) presents the story of her own doctoral study as a ‘case’ demonstrative of the capacity of the research degree to function as inquiry-based professional learning. It has been written as a first-person narrative, and as such represents a discursive shift from earlier chapters, which in turn represented a discursive shift themselves from the prior task of authoring a Ph.D. thesis.