Description
Book SynopsisAt the beginning of the 21st century museums are challenged on a number of fronts. The prioritisation of learning in museums in the context of demands for social justice and cultural democracy combined with cultural policy based on economic rationalism forces museums to review their educational purposes, redesign their pedagogies and account for their performance.
The need to theorise learning and culture for a cultural theory of learning is very pressing. If culture acts as a process of signification, a means of producing meaning that shapes worldviews, learning in museums and other cultural organisations is potentially dynamic and profound, producing self-identities. How is this complexity to be measured'? What can this measurement' reveal about the character of museum-based learning? The calibration of culture is an international phenomenon, and the measurement of the outcomes and impact of learning in museums in England has provided a detailed case study. Three national e
Table of Contents
1. Museums: learning and culture 2. Calibrating culture 3. Conceptualising learning in cultural organisations 4. The Generic Learning Outcomes – an interpretive framework 5. The research programmes: background and method 6. The pattern of school use of museums 7. The value of museums for teachers 8. Pupils’ learning outcomes: teachers’ views 9. Pupils’ learning outcomes: pupils’ voices 10. The characteristics and significance of learning in museums 11. Learning in the post-museum: issues and challenges
