Educational connoisseurship is a term used in the field of curriculum evaluation and research to denote a heightened sense of awareness of the subtleties of various educational and curricular phenomena. The term was coined by Elliot Eisner in the early 1980s. Educational connoisseurship is the first condition necessary to engage in the act of educational criticism. Educational criticism is an approach to educational evaluation in which the subtle qualities perceived are rendered in a form that is analogous to the writing of art critics.

Educational connoisseurship implies an ability to see clearly the complexities within educational or curricular commonplaces. In defining connoisseurship, in general, Eisner drew upon the work of John Dewey as he distinguished between the act of recognizing particulars as members of a category ...