Art Education Commons^™

Participant Observer As Critic, Robin R. Alexander

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

Participant observation is a term used to denote a group of research techniques which anthropologists, sociologists, other social scientists, and in this case, critics, use to collect data in natural settings. By critics, I mean educational critics who utilize the paradigm of aesthetic criticism in their evaluation of education situations. From the several appropriate techniques for gathering data for educational evaluations, many educational critics choose participant observation techniques. This paper centers on 1) the similarities and differences between critics' and other researchers' use of participant observation techniques and 2) the differences between their research products.