The goal of this chapter is to provide an explanation of qualitative inquiry through the lens of educational criticism and connoisseurship using a case study example. The writers provide a breakdown of educational criticism and connoisseurship with an explanation of how a researcher might use educational criticism and connoisseurship in data collection and communication of findings. Additionally, the chapter will provide options for data collection, management, analysis, and interpretation. The chapter will also include a list of published studies that exemplify qualitative inquiry, including case studies, ethnography, and phenomenology, using educational criticism.
TopIntroduction
The goal of this chapter is to provide doctoral candidates with an explanation of qualitative inquiry through the lens of educational criticism and connoisseurship demonstrated through a case study example. The authors aim to explain how dissertation studies may be framed and disseminated using the educational connoisseurship and criticism method to collect data and report findings. In the first section, the writers provide a brief historical overview of Elliot Eisner’s contributions to qualitative research including school ecology and the conceptualization of educational criticism and connoisseurship. The authors provide an explanation of the method using a case study example from dissertation research. The chapter includes an overview of school ecology, educational connoisseurship, and educational criticism. In the second half of the chapter, the writers address credibility, trustworthiness, and usefulness within the case study approach in qualitative research. Additionally, the chapter provides options for data collection, management, analysis, and interpretation. The chapter includes a list of published studies that exemplify qualitative inquiry, including case studies, ethnography, and phenomenology, using educational criticism.
Who is Elliot Eisner?
Born in Chicago, 1933, Elliot Eisner was an artist, professor, critical thinker, and strong advocate for arts education (Donald, 2014). Initially earning a BA in art and education from Roosevelt University in Chicago and an MS in art education from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Eisner served as a high school art teacher for two years. Later returning to the University of Chicago, Eisner earned both a master's degree and doctorate in education, and served as an assistant professor at the University. In 1965, Eisner joined the faculty at Stanford until becoming Professor Emeritus of Art and the Lee Jacks Professor Emeritus of Education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Through the course of his career, Eisner authored over 30 books/research reports addressing curriculum, pedagogy, and qualitative research. Eisner’s accolades include five honorary doctorates, presidencies in several professional organizations, and numerous awards (Eisner’s Contributions, n.d.).
Eisner served as president of the John Dewey Society and applied Deweyan ideas to curriculum development. Eisner specifically argued against the limitations of a strictly objectives-based curriculum and the lack of accounting for student individuality and context (Eisner’s Contributions, n.d.). Motivated by the idea that students receive, process, and present information in different ways, Eisner coined the term “cognitive pluralism” as a theory of knowledge acquisition or curriculum ideology focused on internal and external factors that influence learning. In addition to developing innovative methods of examining curriculum, Eisner was highly influential in promoting the benefits of qualitative research in education with the goal of shining a light on important details that may otherwise be overlooked. The educational connoisseurship method is based on Eisner’s (2017) model of school ecology.
School Ecology
Many factors contribute to how and why certain phenomena take place in a learning environment; Eisner (1988) called these factors the ecology of schooling. School ecology can be used as a conceptual framework to guide data collection through interviews, observations, and artifacts (Eisner, 2017). The dimensions of school ecology include the intentional, structural curricular, pedagogical, and evaluative. Each of the dimensions are discussed in further detail in the educational connoisseurship section. The authors elected to use examples from a case study of creativity to portray how each dimension may factor into data collection, but would like to explicitly state that researchers can use educational criticism in tandem with other methodologies. Examples from the case study will serve as general illustrations throughout the chapter. A brief synopsis of the case study will help readers make sense of the examples presented.