This study is part of a large project on teacher research and professional development in progress in the Teacher Enhancement Program (TEP), a collaborative mid-career program between the University of New Mexico and local public schools. The objective of the study was to describe teachers' engagement in classroom inquiry and the transformative process by which teachers awoke to their students' new voices and ways of participation in the classroom as well as the impact on their teaching methods and philosophy. Participants were 24 teachers attending TEP and the program staff during the semester of the course in teacher research. Teachers' involvement in their Classroom Systematic Inquiry Project (CSIP) was assisted by a peer support group, readings, whole group presentations and conversations, and the corresponding peer support member of the staff. Teacher perceptions of the new dimensions they discovered in their students were identified by means of discourse analysis of oral and written presentation of their inquiry projects and meetings. Findings indicated: teachers' transformative process went from skepticism to increased democratization of their classrooms; teachers awakened to their students' new voices, thereby becoming aware of their own teaching transformation; although skeptical and fearful at the beginning of the course, teachers eventually became fully engaged in their classroom inquiry. It was concluded that enhancing collaboration and more democratic student participation in the classroom is a necessary but not sufficient condition to assure culturally relevant teaching. (Contains 39 references.) (Author/LH)