In this article, Professor Jacob describes an action research tool which is part of a  web-based course called Education and Culture.  The Cultural Inquiry Process (CIP) is a six-step process designed to present a framework for understanding students in a culturally diverse school.  But what Dr Jacob has developed is a much broader tool for understanding people in a culturally diverse world.

        CIP  presents a framework of steps and sub-steps for examining ‘puzzlements’ which teachers encounter in their daily work.  Using action research but refining it to specific steps and questions for each of those steps, Jacob takes a teacher with a  cultural puzzlement from the first step of identifying the specific problem to the last step which is to monitor the results of the intervention.  The middle steps of examining what is known about the individual or the situation and of considering the alternative cultural questions to explore, come with further questions and sub-questions which guide the researcher into deeper considerations of the meaning  of culture  and therefore alternate cultural perspectives.  Jacob presents a more detailed approach to action research literature which often outlines broad steps such as: prepare to begin, write the question, collect data, analyze data and plan your next step. (Richardson, Walsh)

        Even though the article is written about CIP as part of an education course, the Cultural Inquiry Process does not have to be limited to the classroom.  The casual researcher or someone who has a puzzlement but does not want to follow all the steps can still use the process.  After identifying the situation, the curious person can go to Step 3 on the web site and look at the questions which lead to looking at the problem from various cultural perspectives.  For example, when trying to discover why a student is not responding well in class,  Step 3 encourages the reader to look beyond race and ethnic group perspectives to see whether there is a family, neighborhood or classroom situation which is inhibiting the child from responding.  It presents a set of questions to get beyond race and ethnicity to see the child in a broader cultural context.  It also encourages the reader to look at the student as a part of many cultural groups at the same time.

        Jacob’s research is valuable not only because it has given us CIP but it incorporates Web-Based Instruction (WBI) which seems to be the direction of the future (Dabbagh).  By having the CIP on-line, it is easily accessible to both the professional (educator) and the non-professional (any person with a puzzlement).   A beginning researcher or a layman can easily follow the steps to access the researched articles.  Not only are there hyper links but also sections on further research for the topic which is being explored.   It’s an idea tool for the beginning researcher.

        The only aspect which the web-site does not have for the casual researcher is the blackboard or the on-line discussion group which is offered as part of the course.  That aspect would allow people with the same puzzlement to share and exchange views.

        Jacob’s CIP provides a structured framework to examine cultural questions which come up in classrooms or in every day life.  CIP expands the definition of culture so that the researcher is looking at culture from a wide perspective.  It is presented in a format which is very easy to follow.   What started out to be a classroom research tool has the framework  and potential to be a  valuable resource for anyone with a question on cultural diversity.

 References

Dabbagh, Nada (2001) Online learning and web-based course authoring tools:  Concepts,    strategies and application.  Manuscript in preparation.

Jacob, E.  & Ruess, K. (2000). Integrating technology and pedagogy in a foundations course.   Journal of Computing in Teacher Education,  16(4), (12-17).

Richardson, Joan (2000, February/March) Teacher research leads to learning, action.  National   Staff Development Council: Tools for Schools.  (1-7).

Walsh, f. Timothy (2000, March), Bilingual Teachers as action researchers in TESOL.  Paper presented at the meeting of the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Vancouver, BC.