Beyond Museum Education and Learning

2012 International Biennial Conference of Museum Studies


Topic

With the development of global cultural democratization movement and the influence of neoliberalism, the educational role of museums is becoming increasingly important; however, at the same time facing various kinds of challenges.

To educational formalists, museums invariably play complementary roles to the formal educational system, are often viewed as a kind of “informal educational.” However, we cannot ignore the fact that learners usually play active and positive roles in their learning processes, and that culture is not transmitted by educators only. Once involved with the educational realm, the transmission of knowledge is inevitably influenced by socio-cultural factors, despite it might start out with a scientific purpose. The construction of the importance of museum education and exhibition not only reinforces the complementarity between museum education and official educational system but also discovers the active, positive dimension of museum education and its unique learning method and essence.

The function and legitimacy of museum education in contemporary society present two different dimensions. On the one hand, the function of museum education is increasingly emphasized. The educational task of museums keeps expanding, becoming an indispensable element of the personal and communal lifelong educational system, with its methods and contents appearing in multifarious forms. On the other hand, such educational methods and contents, having become more and more institutionalized, tend to serve a particular social stratum and gradually undermine the distinctiveness and value of museum profession. This not only highlights the dependent status of museum education to formal education but also duplicates the socio-cultural standard of those dominating culture and symbolic capital in society, making the organization of the education department more centralized. Museum professions must be aware and transcend the inappropriate and biased boarder, designed according to certain ideology and for certain class.


Subthemes

1. The social and cultural impact of museum education and learning.

2. The relationships between museum education, learning genres, and specific cultural realms.

3. The relationship between the practice of museum education and learning, and the internal functional complementarities with other departments in the museum. The internal functional complementary relationships between museum education and learning practices and other departments of the museum.

4. The museographic study of museum education and learning.


Date: Oct. 25-26, 2012

Venue:
International Conference Hall, Taipei National University of the Arts

Organizers:
National Taiwan Museum, Graduate Institute of Museum Studies (TNUA)

Keynote Speech:

Museums and Science Educaton
Yui-Tan CHANG, Director of National Museum of History

Museums and History Education
Li-Chuan HSIAO, Chief Curator of Hong Kong Museum of History