EdSight

Elliot Wayne Eisner was an American painter, art educator, and educational theorist whose career at Stanford University made him the foremost advocate for the cognitive, curricular, and methodological importance of the arts in education. Born in Chicago in 1933 to a Jewish American family that saw education as a motivating force for change, Eisner traced his intellectual life to his mother's decision, when he was eight, to enroll him in Saturday art classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago — where he first spent time among paintings, sculptures, and relics from antiquity that he would later credit as foundational. He attended John Marshall High School in Chicago (1946–1950), where mentors such as George Wisenberg introduced him to the “culture” of artmaking as a thoughtful, intentional process, then moved through the School of the Art Institute, a commercial design studio, Roosevelt University (B.A. in Art and Education, 1954), and the Institute of Design of the Illinois Institute of Technology (M.S. in Art Education, 1955) before taking his first certified teaching job as a Chicago public-school art teacher. After publishing his first article, “What Is Art Education For?” (1958), earning a second master's from the University of Chicago (1958), and completing a Ph.D. in Education there (1962) — for which he had to design his own program because no art-education doctorate yet existed — Eisner taught at Ohio State and the University of Chicago before joining Stanford University in 1965, where he became full professor in 1970, served as Lee Jacks Professor of Education, and was named Professor of Art in 2000. Across six decades he reshaped the field through books including Cognition and Curriculum (1982), The Enlightened Eye (1998), and The Arts and the Creation of Mind (2002), served a term as President of the John Dewey Society in 1998, and mentored generations of art educators. He died in 2014 of complications from Parkinson's disease, having been, in his own self-description, ever the proponent of surprise.

Eisner's foundational theoretical contribution was to refuse the common reduction of “cognition” to word-based or propositional thought. Drawing on Dewey's Art as Experience, Susanne K. Langer's philosophy of feeling, and Rudolf Arnheim's Gestalt-inflected psychology of perception, he argued that cognition is embodied in far more forms than language alone, and coined the term “cognitive pluralism” to name the view that the mind is socially created and that knowledge can be represented in many ways. The creation of a picture, a poem, or a musical composition, Eisner held, requires cognitively-mediated qualities that “must be seen, modulated, transformed, and organized in the course of one's work” and for which “there are no linguistic equivalents.” Perception itself, on this view, is not given but cultivated: learners begin with the whole, and as perception is “funded” through experience, finer differentiations become available to them. The educational corollary is that schools must provide curricula “devoted to the senses, to concept formation through numerous forms of representation, to meaning-making activities, and to the imagination.”

• Eisner, E. W. (1982). Cognition and curriculum: A basis for deciding what to teach. Longman.
• Eisner, E. W. (1994). Cognition and curriculum reconsidered (2nd ed.). Teachers College Press.
• Eisner, E. W. (1978). The impoverished mind. Educational Leadership, 35(8), 615–623.
• Eisner, E. W. (1991). What the arts taught me about education. Art Education, 44(5), 10–19.
• Uhrmacher, P. B. (2001). Elliot Eisner, 1933–. In J. A. Palmer (Ed.), Fifty modern thinkers on education: From Piaget to the present (pp. 247–252). Routledge.

In 1967 Eisner and a team of Stanford graduate students launched what became known as the Kettering Project, whose aim was to develop an art curriculum that elementary teachers untrained in art could use effectively with young children. With later support from the Getty Education Institute for the Arts, this work evolved into Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE), which organized art instruction around four interlocking strands — artmaking, art history, art criticism, and aesthetics — so that art could be taught as a serious school discipline rather than a diversion. Critics objected that DBAE was over-structured, sequenced, and narrowly objective-driven; Eisner countered across a series of articles (1987, 1988, 1990) that DBAE was never designed as a “Betty Crocker recipe for practice,” but as a “flexible and purposive” framework whose aim was to cultivate inquiry, intrinsic satisfaction, and connections between art in school and the world beyond it. His reply to the charge that structure deadens creativity became one of his most-quoted formulations: those committed to DBAE “are also committed to magic. Without it there is no art. Without structure there is no access.”

1. Artmaking: the disciplined production of work that cultivates perception and expressive outcomes.

2. Art History: the situating of works within traditions, periods, and cultural contexts.

3. Art Criticism: the practice of describing, analyzing, and interpreting works to enlarge perception.

4. Aesthetics: the philosophical examination of the nature and value of art.

• Eisner, E. W. (1970). Stanford's Kettering project. Art Education, 23(8), 4–7.
• Eisner, E. W. (1987). The role of discipline-based art education in America's schools. Art Education, 40(5), 6–26, 43–45.
• Eisner, E. W. (1988). Structure and magic in discipline-based art education. Journal of Art & Design Education, 7(2), 185–196.
• Eisner, E. W. (1990). Discipline-based art education: Conceptions and misconceptions. Educational Theory, 40(4), 423–430.
• Dobbs, S. M. (1992). The DBAE handbook: An overview of discipline-based art education. J. Paul Getty Trust.

Eisner was the principal advocate for Arts-Based Research (ABR) and Arts-Based Educational Research (ABER) as legitimate modes of empirical inquiry, and he did more than any single figure to open qualitative research to what he called “methodological pluralism.” In a now-famous 1996 public debate with Howard Gardner he defended the proposition that a novel could count as a doctoral dissertation, and over three decades of writing he argued that the meaningful distinction in research is not between qualitative and non-qualitative inquiry but between what is studied scientifically and what is studied artistically. The aim of ABR, he and Tom Barone wrote in Arts Based Research (2012), is not to replace traditional methods but “to diversify the pantry of methods that researchers can use to address the problems they care about.” Eisner articulated distinct standards of rigor for artful inquiry — referential adequacy, structural corroboration, consensual validation, believability — and challenged fellow researchers “to do what we don't know how to do” so as to “bypass familiar ports and explore the new seas that we might sail.”

• Eisner, E. W. (1981). On the differences between scientific and artistic approaches to qualitative research. Educational Researcher, 10(4), 5–9.
• Eisner, E. W. (1993). Forms of understanding and the future of educational research. Educational Researcher, 22(7), 5–11.
• Eisner, E. W. (1997). The promise and perils of alternative forms of data representation. Educational Researcher, 26(6), 4–10.
• Eisner, E. W. (2006). Does arts-based research have a future? Studies in Art Education, 48(1), 9–18.
• Eisner, E. W. (2008). Persistent tensions in arts-based research. In M. Cahnmann-Taylor & R. Siegesmund (Eds.), Arts-based research in education (pp. 16–27). Routledge.
• Barone, T., & Eisner, E. W. (2012). Arts based research. SAGE.
• Saks, A. L. (1996). Viewpoints: Should novels count as dissertations in education? Research in the Teaching of English, 30(4), 403–427.

Eisner's theory of evaluation rested on two linked and deliberately recovered terms. Tracing “connoisseurship” back to the Latin cognoscere (“to know”), he defined it not as elitism but as the cultivated “ability to see, not merely look” — a highly perceptive engagement with the qualities of a work, a classroom, or a curriculum that can be learned through experience and inquiry. “Criticism,” paired with it, is the public disclosure of what the connoisseur has perceived: criticism should “illuminate a situation or object” so as to further appreciation, recognition, and knowledge rather than to deliver verdicts. Together, connoisseurship and criticism constitute an evaluative epistemology in which qualitative judgment, grounded in perception, description, and interpretation, takes its place alongside measurement-based assessment of schools. Any teacher or student, Eisner argued, can become a connoisseur through sustained attention to the qualities of artworks and classroom events, and in doing so develop “two modes through which we come to understand and express what we come to know.”

• Eisner, E. W. (1976). Educational connoisseurship and criticism: Their form and functions in educational evaluation. The Journal of Aesthetic Education, 10(3/4), 135–150.
• Eisner, E. W. (1977). On the uses of educational connoisseurship and criticism for evaluating classroom life. Teachers College Record, 78(3), 345–358.
• Eisner, E. W. (1998). The enlightened eye: Qualitative inquiry and the enhancement of educational practice. Prentice-Hall.
• Eisner, E. W. (2002a). The arts and the creation of mind. Yale University Press.
• Uhrmacher, P. B., & Matthews, J. (2005). Building his palette of scholarship: A biographical sketch of Elliot Eisner. In Intricate palette: Working the ideas of Elliot Eisner (pp. 1–13). Pearson Education.

Eisner's culminating case for the arts in general education, developed across his later books and synthesized in the National Art Education Association's posthumous “10 Lessons the Arts Teach,” held that the arts offer schools a model of learning that other fields should emulate rather than merely an optional enrichment. The arts, he argued, teach that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer; that small differences can have large effects; that goals need to be flexible and surprise counts; that the limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition; that form and content are inseparable; and that aesthetic experience is a distinct mode of knowing. “No painter, writer, composer, or choreographer can foresee all the twists and turns that his or her work will take,” he wrote. “The work of art … is a journey that unfolds.” The relationship of maker to work is not that of lecturer to listener but “a conversation between the worker and the work” — and, in Eisner's vision, this is what schools, curricula, and research should learn from as well.

1. Decision-making over answers: the arts train learners to choose among defensible alternatives rather than retrieve a single correct solution.

2. Flexibility in approaches to learning: artful practice tolerates multiple entry points, revisions, and changes of direction.

3. The connections that context provides: meaning in the arts depends on relations among elements, not on isolated parts.

4. The limitations and expansions of materials: the properties of a medium shape, constrain, and enable what can be thought through it.

5. Aesthetic experience as a propellant of learning: the felt qualities of form and experience drive engagement and understanding.

• Eisner, E. W. (1985). Aesthetic modes of knowing. In E. Eisner (Ed.), Learning and teaching the ways of knowing (pp. 23–36). National Society for the Study of Education.
• Eisner, E. W. (1992). The misunderstood role of the arts in human development. The Phi Delta Kappan, 73(8), 591–595.
• Eisner, E. W. (2002a). The arts and the creation of mind. Yale University Press.
• Eisner, E. W. (2002b). What can education learn from the arts about the practice of education? Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 18(1), 4–16.
• Eisner, E. W. (2005). Reimagining schools: The selected works of Elliot W. Eisner. Routledge.
• National Art Education Association. (2016, February 1). 10 lessons the arts teach.

• Eisner, E. (1958). What is art education for? The High School Journal, 41(6), 263–267.
• Eisner, E. W. (1970). Stanford's Kettering project. Art Education, 23(8), 4–7.
• Eisner, E. W. (1976). Educational connoisseurship and criticism: Their form and functions in educational evaluation. The Journal of Aesthetic Education, 10(3/4), 135–150.
• Eisner, E. W. (1977). On the uses of educational connoisseurship and criticism for evaluating classroom life. Teachers College Record, 78(3), 345–358.
• Eisner, E. W. (1978). The impoverished mind. Educational Leadership, 35(8), 615–623.
• Eisner, E. W. (1981). On the differences between scientific and artistic approaches to qualitative research. Educational Researcher, 10(4), 5–9.
• Eisner, E. W. (1982). Cognition and curriculum: A basis for deciding what to teach. Longman.
• Eisner, E. W. (1985). Aesthetic modes of knowing. In E. Eisner (Ed.), Learning and teaching the ways of knowing (pp. 23–36). National Society for the Study of Education.
• Eisner, E. W. (1987). The role of discipline-based art education in America's schools. Art Education, 40(5), 6–26, 43–45.
• Eisner, E. W. (1988). Structure and magic in discipline-based art education. Journal of Art & Design Education, 7(2), 185–196.
• Eisner, E. W. (1990). Discipline-based art education: Conceptions and misconceptions. Educational Theory, 40(4), 423–430.
• Eisner, E. W. (1991). What the arts taught me about education. Art Education, 44(5), 10–19.
• Eisner, E. W. (1992). The misunderstood role of the arts in human development. The Phi Delta Kappan, 73(8), 591–595.
• Eisner, E. W. (1993). Forms of understanding and the future of educational research. Educational Researcher, 22(7), 5–11.
• Eisner, E. W. (1994). Cognition and curriculum reconsidered (2nd ed.). Teachers College Press.
• Eisner, E. W. (1996). Fly me to the moon on gossamer wings: My journey through academia. In R. Raunft (Ed.), The autobiographical lectures of some prominent art educators (pp. 281–289). The National Art Education Association.
• Eisner, E. W. (1997). The promise and perils of alternative forms of data representation. Educational Researcher, 26(6), 4–10.
• Eisner, E. W. (1998). The enlightened eye: Qualitative inquiry and the enhancement of educational practice. Prentice-Hall.
• Eisner, E. W. (2002a). The arts and the creation of mind. Yale University Press.
• Eisner, E. W. (2002b). What can education learn from the arts about the practice of education? Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 18(1), 4–16.
• Eisner, E. W. (2005). Reimagining schools: The selected works of Elliot W. Eisner. Routledge.
• Eisner, E. W. (2006). Does arts-based research have a future? Studies in Art Education, 48(1), 9–18.
• Eisner, E. W. (2008). Persistent tensions in arts-based research. In M. Cahnmann-Taylor & R. Siegesmund (Eds.), Arts-based research in education: Foundations for practice (pp. 16–27). Routledge.
• Eisner, E. W., & Powell, K. (2002). Art in science? Curriculum Inquiry, 32(2), 131–159.
• Barone, T., & Eisner, E. W. (2012). Arts based research. SAGE.
• Dewey, J. (1934). Art as experience. Penguin Group.
• Dobbs, S. M. (1992). The DBAE handbook: An overview of discipline-based art education. J. Paul Getty Trust.
• Gardner, H. (2005). Elliot Eisner as educator. In P. B. Uhrmacher & J. Matthews (Eds.), Intricate palette: Working the ideas of Elliot Eisner (pp. 215–217). Pearson Education.
• Leavy, P. (2015). Method meets art: Arts-based research in practice. The Guilford Press.
• Leavy, P. (2018). Handbook of arts-based research. The Guilford Press.
• Saks, A. L. (1996). Viewpoints: Should novels count as dissertations in education? Research in the Teaching of English, 30(4), 403–427.
• Uhrmacher, P. B., & Matthews, J. (2005). Intricate palette: Working the ideas of Elliot Eisner. Pearson Education.