Elliot Eisner SIG Educational Imagination Dissertation Award

American Educational Research Association

The Elliot Eisner Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association invites nominations of dissertations in educational research that exemplify excellence in educational imagination and align with the purpose of the SIG: to promote scholarship that applies, extends, critiques, and reinvents Eisner’s scholarship. 

The author of the selected dissertation will receive a $300 cash award and a plaque. They will be formally recognized at the SIG’s Annual Meeting.

Eligibility Criteria: 

• Dissertations must have been successfully defended within the 12 months of the deadline for nominations.
• The dissertation contributes to advancing the educational imagination, broadly speaking. The committee welcomes dissertation research that illuminates diverse perspectives and methodologies.
• Eligible dissertations should demonstrate high-level scholarship and be timely and relevant to the field of curriculum studies or education more broadly.

Nomination Process and Timeline:

The nominating faculty member should submit the nominations packet to Jennifer Bartee at Jennifer.Bartee@udc.edu. The deadline for completed nominations packets is January 15, 2025. 

• A formal letter of nomination prepared by the Dissertation Chair/Advisor verifying the date of the nominee’s successful defense* and attesting to how the dissertation advances research and dialogue toward educational imagination. 
• A 2–3-page summary of the dissertation prepared by the nominee that provides an overview of the dissertation, including specifically how the research applies, extends, critiques, and/or reinvents Eisner’s scholarship.
• Title Page and Table of Contents for the nominated dissertation
• ONE chapter of the dissertation (nominee’s choice).

The committee will consider the general categories of scholarship, relevance, timeliness, diverse perspectives, and implications of the research. 

We heartily thank the Eisner family for their generous donation to make this award possible.