What are the problems to which materialist methodologies are posed as a solution? In this book, Aaron M. Kuntz maps the impact of materialism on contemporary practices of inquiry in education and the social sciences. Through this work, the author challenges readers to consider inquiry as a mode of ethically engaged citizenship with implications for resisting our contemporary moment towards a more equitable future. The author engages his own inquiry as radical cartographic work, drawing forth distinctions between dialectical and dialogic formations of materialism in order to develop what he terms relational materialism-an engaged orientation to living that dwells in the entangled relations of affirmative ethics and enduring practices of resistance and refusal. Drawing upon examples from higher education, contemporary culture, and normative assumptions of governance, the author considers the potential that we might generate living alternatives to the contemporary status quo; daily practices no longer dependent on binary division or standardized calculations of what "matters." As such, the author advocates for practices of virtuous inquiry (future-orientated ethical assertions of what one should do) that orient inquiry as materially ethical activity. Despite the often-overwhelming state of inequity and exploitation in our contemporary world, Kuntz generates an affirmative ethical stance that we can become relationally different, guided by a virtuous determination to articulate inquiry as the cartographic work of disruption and imagination. This text will prove valuable to graduate students and faculty who take inquiry seriously and seek the means to understand their work as engaged in the necessary challenge for material change.

Winner of The University of Alabama 2017 President's Faculty Research Award What does it mean to be a responsible methodologist? Certainly it is more than being a research middle-manager who ensures that the tools used in a thesis or dissertation are of the right gauge. In The Responsible Methodologist, leading education scholar Aaron Kuntz uses the latest movements in social theory to challenge qualitative researchers to reconceptualize their work away from the technocratic toward an intervention, an ethical disruption of the norm, an activist stance toward progressive social change. Inviting creativity and vision, he insists that the responsible methodologist become a force leading the discourse toward social justice. His book-challenges the technocratic role given to qualitative methodologists in university settings;-urges them to become a force for change through Foucault's parrhesia, risky truth-telling;-includes research projects that have incorporated this vision. http://amkuntz.people.ua.edu/

Winner of The University of Alabama 2017 President's Faculty Research Award What does it mean to be a responsible methodologist? Certainly it is more than being a research middle-manager who ensures that the tools used in a thesis or dissertation are of the right gauge. In The Responsible Methodologist, leading education scholar Aaron Kuntz uses the latest movements in social theory to challenge qualitative researchers to reconceptualize their work away from the technocratic toward an intervention, an ethical disruption of the norm, an activist stance toward progressive social change. Inviting creativity and vision, he insists that the responsible methodologist become a force leading the discourse toward social justice. His book-challenges the technocratic role given to qualitative methodologists in university settings;-urges them to become a force for change through Foucault's parrhesia, risky truth-telling;-includes research projects that have incorporated this vision. http://amkuntz.people.ua.edu/

What are the problems to which materialist methodologies are posed as a solution? In this book, Aaron M. Kuntz maps the impact of materialism on contemporary practices of inquiry in education and the social sciences. Through this work, the author challenges readers to consider inquiry as a mode of ethically engaged citizenship with implications for resisting our contemporary moment towards a more equitable future. The author engages his own inquiry as radical cartographic work, drawing forth distinctions between dialectical and dialogic formations of materialism in order to develop what he terms relational materialism-an engaged orientation to living that dwells in the entangled relations of affirmative ethics and enduring practices of resistance and refusal. Drawing upon examples from higher education, contemporary culture, and normative assumptions of governance, the author considers the potential that we might generate living alternatives to the contemporary status quo; daily practices no longer dependent on binary division or standardized calculations of what "matters." As such, the author advocates for practices of virtuous inquiry (future-orientated ethical assertions of what one should do) that orient inquiry as materially ethical activity. Despite the often-overwhelming state of inequity and exploitation in our contemporary world, Kuntz generates an affirmative ethical stance that we can become relationally different, guided by a virtuous determination to articulate inquiry as the cartographic work of disruption and imagination. This text will prove valuable to graduate students and faculty who take inquiry seriously and seek the means to understand their work as engaged in the necessary challenge for material change.

Leading Dynamic Schools: How to Create and Implement Ethical Policies is a policy book for people who work in and with schools: teachers, building level leaders, central office administrators, board members, and parent boards. In accessible language, the authors deconstruct the conceptions and understandings of educational policy. This volume serves as a companion volume to Principals of Dynamic Schools (Rallis and Goldring, Corwin Press, 2000) and Dynamic Teachers (Rallis and Rossman, Corwin Press, 1995), books that introduced the construct of dynamic schools. This book also draws on work from Becoming a Reflective Educator (Reagan, Case and Brubacher, Corwin Press, 2000). Policy is an often overused and more often misunderstood concept. The authors bring to life the making and enacting of educational policy in schools, and help readers develop a more sophisticated and complex understanding of the purposes, evaluation, creation, and implementation of school policies at all levels. As in the earlier books, the authors use vignettes and cases, as well as research and relevant theories, to illustrate important concepts. The theme of power within policy permeates the text. The authors recognize that policy tends to represent dominant voices, and that power can be appropriate and legitimate. Dynamic schools are places where multiple voices contribute to the policy-making and implementing process.

Leading Dynamic Schools: How to Create and Implement Ethical Policies is a policy book for people who work in and with schools: teachers, building level leaders, central office administrators, board members, and parent boards. In accessible language, the authors deconstruct the conceptions and understandings of educational policy. This volume serves as a companion volume to Principals of Dynamic Schools (Rallis and Goldring, Corwin Press, 2000) and Dynamic Teachers (Rallis and Rossman, Corwin Press, 1995), books that introduced the construct of dynamic schools. This book also draws on work from Becoming a Reflective Educator (Reagan, Case and Brubacher, Corwin Press, 2000). Policy is an often overused and more often misunderstood concept. The authors bring to life the making and enacting of educational policy in schools, and help readers develop a more sophisticated and complex understanding of the purposes, evaluation, creation, and implementation of school policies at all levels. As in the earlier books, the authors use vignettes and cases, as well as research and relevant theories, to illustrate important concepts. The theme of power within policy permeates the text. The authors recognize that policy tends to represent dominant voices, and that power can be appropriate and legitimate. Dynamic schools are places where multiple voices contribute to the policy-making and implementing process.