ABSTRACT
In music, force is not power, something that many of the world’s political leaders do not perceive. The difference between power and force is equivalent to the difference between volume and intensity in music. This chapter argues that, like philological criticism, art criticism, or film criticism, educational criticism is a rich tapestry or collection of insights only loosely answering to that nickname. Although arguing for a new specialization in education risks the professionalization that Edward Said warns intellectuals against, the discipline would benefit from developing educational criticism as a bona fide area with its own discursive community, institutional supports, and traditions. In 1976, Elliot Eisner proposed a research program he called “educational criticism” in the Journal of Aesthetic Education. In it, he compared criticism to connoisseurship, where the first is about disclosure, its success proportional to its ability to illuminate, and the second, about appreciation.
