Why should inquiry - the engine for independent, curiosity- and interest-driven, life-long learning - be a curricular imperative, and its presence a criterion for excellent education? Is it possible to teach inquiry skills systematically and to engage learners in being inquirers across elementary, secondary, and post-secondary schooling? To answer these urgent questions, this book pulls together more than four decades of expert opinion, quantitative research, and qualitative research on inquiry in different disciplines, school subjects, and levels of education; and presents a dozen different pedagogical, philosophical, and disciplinary traditions within which evidence and rationale are found for building learning and teaching experiences around inquiry-based curricula Inquiry in Education, Volume I: The Conceptual Foundations for Research as a Curricular Imperative is the first book to gather all these sources together, to build a cross-disciplinary case for inquiry as the central core of sound curriculum design, and to offer an organized interpretation of this large body of knowledge from a variety of perspectives and for different educational purposes. A companion volume, Shore, Aulls, & Delcourt, Eds., Inquiry in Education, Volume II: Overcoming Barriers to Successful Implementation, focuses on a corollary question: If inquiry is such a good thing, why is it not universal practice? What barriers stand in the way, and how can teachers overcome them? Inquiry in Education, Volume I is intended for scholars, faculty, and students of education, and for practitioners at all levels of schooling who support inquiry-oriented reforms in education and who want to learn more about how to use inquiry in their own practice.