This article explores the dilemmas that arose in the effort to combine critical ethnography and praxis in a school/university partnership project intending to restructure an urban high school. The tensions and complexities discussed arise from the desire to foster collaboration among participants in a democratic and non-Othering manner, while pursuing a goal of transforming the inequitable structures of schooling m our society. What political and ethical compromises does a critical/activist researcher face when confronted with a lack of consensus among participants? What is the effect of partially transformed structures of schooling within a wider context of a socially unjust society? The author concludes by reflecting on the roles and positionalities she co-constructed with participants during the project, as well as opportunities that emerged for participant consciousness-raising about the systemic inequities of class, race, and gender and their perpetuation in urban schools.
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