Arts-Based Educational Research (ABER): Its literary elements of design according to Elliot Eisner

Abstract

One of Elliot Eisner efforts (1933-2014), focused most particularly on the roles played by art in educational research, highlighting the uniqueness of a methodology that became known in Brazil, and Portugal, as PEBA (ABER: Arts-Based Educational Research, in eng.). It is based on what the author defines as design elements: text format and the type of language used in the narration of the research. The adoption of such perspectives that focus on literary text size implies overcoming certain preconceived ideas about the dominance of rationality and objectivity in scientific language. Honouring Elliot Eisner, this article aims to clarify the above methodology, contrasting it with the basic principles of those normally found under the broad umbrella of qualitative methodologies.