About the Institute on Descriptive Inquiry, Inc.

Established in 2011, the Institute on Descriptive Inquiry Inc. (IDI) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that seeks to preserve, promote, expand, and augment the concept of descriptive inquiry.

Purposes of the Institute include:

To work to make descriptive inquiry accessible to a broad array of educators
To work in concert with other organizations with the same or similar objectives
To support projects by educators with similar interests
To organize and conduct workshops, lectures, and symposia based on the concept of descriptive inquiry.
To publish pamphlets, articles, and books on descriptive inquiry or related topics

With historical roots in the descriptive processes developed at the Prospect School and at the Prospect Archive and Center for Education and Research (1965-2011), the Institute promotes thoughtful group processes to describe, look closely at, and reflect upon student and teacher work in order to enhance teacher and school practice.

When the Prospect Archive and Center for Education and Research closed in 2011, the residential institutes formerly known as the Prospect Summer Institutes were carried forward by this new organization, the Institute on Descriptive Inquiry, Inc. The Institute on Descriptive Inquiry, Inc. is guided by a working Board of Directors who welcome the skills and partnership of IDI members in all aspects of their work.

There continue to be two institutes, the Summer Institute on Descriptive Process, an introduction faciitated by skilled practitioners, and the Summer Institute on Descriptive Inquiry, a self-governing, collaborative study group, composed of educators and other experienced professionals, that has convened annually since 1978. Using descriptive processes rooted in the work of Prospect, these Institutes provide a venue for concentrated study over a period of days that may be lived out in the professional and personal settings to which participants return.

In the fall of 2024 the Institute on Descriptive Inquiry returned to a long tradition of convening a Fall Conference, offering a day-long opportunity to learn about and participate in descriptive processes.

In addition members of the Institute are also engaged in ongoing virtual and in-person study groups for teachers, leaders and philosophical inquiry.

While some educators return to these descriptive gatherings from year to year, we extend a warm welcome to newcomers. Our top priority is to expand and diversify participation in our offerings. Expansion means that there are more educators speaking out for democratic values and schools responsive to children. Diversity of all kinds immeasurably adds to and strengthens that message.

A letter from the Institute on Descriptive Inquiry Board of Directors, 2020: IDI and Anti-Racism

Past Summer Institute Themes

2001 Taking Care of Childhood, Play, Spirit, and Imagination

2002 Locations of Relationship: Ourselves, Others' Classrooms, Culture

2003 Sustaining Possibility Through Story, Memory, and Imagination

2004 Everyday Life and Our Wildest Dreams: Working Inside Contradictions

2005 The Multiplicities of Democracy

2006 Locating, Designing, Maintaining Spaces for Democratic Community

2007 What Does It Mean to Teach in These Times?

2008 What Do We Hold Dear in Teaching?

2009 Descriptive Inquiry: Coming to Action

2010 Expanding Our Sense of the Possible

2011 Using Descriptive Process to Navigate the New and Difficult Terrain

2012 Using Descriptive Inquiry to Resist and Re-imagine Our Educational Terrain

2013 The Capacity of the Person Within Culture

2014 Supporting the Capacity of the Person Through Community

2015 Expanding Horizons, Combining Perspectives

2016 The Generous Community

2017 How Does Descriptive Inquiry Help Us Move Between the Particular and Politics?

2018 Just[ice] Relations: Knowing Self and Other

2019 Perceiving and Expressing Self, Other, and the World: Capacity, Vulnerability and Voice

2020 Forming and Reforming Identity in a Time of Rebellion Against Racial Injustice

2021 Staying with Trouble: Provisioning for Meaningful Engagement In a Time of Crisis

2022 Description For Connection and Healing: How Do We (Re)Center Education on Our Human, Democratic Values?

2023 Practicing Description to Open Pathways for Creative Resistance

2024 Freedom Dreaming: Transforming Ourselves, Our Work, and Our World(s)

2025 Poetry As a Tool of Resistance: Envisioning Our Futures Together

IDI membership meeting. We are a grassroots organization. Members are participants who have attended at least two weeks of Summer Institutes within five years.