This essay describes some of the primary features of educational criticism, an arts-based approach to qualitative inquiry. We first examine the aims of this approach, focusing on its potential to heighten our perceptions of the classroom. We next discuss four dimensions of educational criticism: descriptive (intended to vividly render the qualities that constitute an educational performance or product); interpretative (represented in the conceptual frameworks that allow critics to account for the attributes and patterns of interaction they have observed); normative (involving a process of articulating those values that inform conceptions of goodness within a given domain); and thematic (concerned with the utility of extracting some type of general understanding, image, principle, or lesson that transcends the particular of an individual case). Finally, we address questions of rigor as they apply to educational criticism and other forms of qualitative research. Specifically, we identify three criteria (consensual validation, structural corroboration, and referential adequacy) appropriate for assessing the credibility of such work. In suggesting criticism as one potential model for educational inquiry, we hope to encourage those researchers who seek to create compelling and richly textured accounts of current classroom practice.

The task of responding to five serious and thoughtful papers is not an easy one. Although there is some overlap among them, each paper makes its own distinctive points. What we have decided to do is to identify the major concerns expressed by each author and then to respond to those concerns as best we can. The level of specificity that is possible in the identification of concerns is virtually infinite. The concerns that we have identified we regard as either important in their own right or common across the five papers that were invited. Following each point is our response.