Short description:

Grounded in the strengths of its first edition, this book has been restructured to include new papers and recent articles, and presents front-running theory and practice as it addresses the relationships of museums and galleries to their audiences.

Long description:

Grounded in the solid strengths of its first edition, this updated and revised second edition, collates recent and important articles that address the relationships of museums and galleries to their audiences.

The Educational Role of the Museum has been entirely restructured and new papers have been added which make this an up-to-date presentation of front-running theory and practice.

Covering broad themes relevant to providing for all museum visitors, and also focusing specifically on educational groups, the book is set in four sections which sequentially:

• chart the development of museum communication


• relate constructivist learning theory to specific audiences with different learning needs


• apply this learning theory to the development of museum exhibitions


• pose questions about the way museums conceptualize audiences.

For any student of museum studies, and for professionals too, this book fuses theory with practice in a way that can only serve to enhance their knowledge of the field.

Table of Contents:

Preface Part I Communication theories 1 Education, communication and interpretation: towards a critical pedagogy in museums 2 Communication in theory and practice 3 Learning in art museums: strategies of interpretation 4 The museum as a communicator: a semiotic analysis of the Western Australian Museum Aboriginal Gallery, Perth Part II Learning in museums 5 Museum learners as active postmodernists: contextualizing constructivism 6 The constructivist museum 7 Teaching yourself to teach with objects 8 Improving worksheets 9 Open windows, open doors 10 Museum multicultural education for young learners 11 Children, teenagers and adults in museums: a developmental perspective 12 Museum-goers: life-styles and learning characteristics 13 Whose museum is it anyway? Museum education and the community Part III Developing effective exhibitions 14 Learning from learning theory in museums 15 Intrinsic motivation in museums: why does one want to learn? 16 Cognitive psychology and interpretation: synthesis and application 17 Collaboration: towards a more holistic design process 18 Spatial considerations 19 The exhibition development process 20 Combating redundancy: writing texts for exhibitions 21 Writing readable text: evaluation of the Ekarv method 22 How old is this text? 23 Museum text as mediated message 24 Increased exhibit accessibility through multisensory interaction Part IV Thinking about museum audiences 25 That those who run may read 26 Audiences: a curatorial dilemma 27 Cultural imagining among museum visitors 28 The disabling society 29 Museums and cultural diversity in contemporary Britain 30 A beginner?s guide to evaluation 31 Monitoring and evaluation: the techniques 32 Small-scale evaluation 33 Evaluation of museum programmes and exhibits 34 Pupils? perceptions of museum education sessions 35 Collaborative evaluation studies between the University of Liverpool and national museums and galleries on Merseyside 36 Sending them home alive.