The term social participation is widely used and has various meanings in different contexts. This article aims to enhance the understanding of social participation in science museums. The research was conducted using a cultural-historical perspective in six steps: (1) survey to identify the meanings attributed to the term social participation and…

Museums are increasingly transforming from passive repositories of history and culture into dynamic spaces that facilitate interdisciplinary learning and active community engagement. This shift is evident in the integration of art and science within museum settings, which enhances public understanding of complex global challenges such as climate…

In 2015-2016, the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte, North Carolina, featured "¡Nuevolution! Latinx and the New South," an interactive exhibit that explored the bidirectional ways Latinx and the US South influence one another. To strengthen the exhibit's impact, LMNS launched a dialogue program aimed at enhancing attendees'…

Research into teaching and learning in science museums has led to innovations in pedagogy, exhibits, and educational programming. Science museum facilitators play a critical role in advancing the educational missions of their institutions, yet the roles that these facilitators have in academic research projects aimed at understanding learning…

This paper explores how biodiversity is represented at the "Life in Crisis Schad Gallery of Biodiversity" (Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto). Using theoretical perspectives related to science, technology, society and environment (STSE), and biodiversity in science museums, we conducted a qualitative case study of the exhibit. Data…

Scientific representations of human evolution often embrace stereotypes of ethnicity and gender that are more aligned with socio-cultural discourses and norms than empirical facts. The present study has two connected aims: to understand how ethnicity and gender are represented in an exhibition about human evolution, and to understand how that…

Historians sometimes view teaching and community engagement as peripheral to research. Self-reflection on the design of assignments, pedagogy techniques, and students' work aids teachers as they refine their teaching, and it can also inform research questions and methods. Teaching, research, and community engagement do not have to be separate…

For the past seven years, we -- a museum educator and an academic radiologist -- have co-taught Seeing in Art and Medical Imaging, a first-of-its-kind medical humanities curriculum for residents in nuclear medicine and radiology based at the Harvard Art Museums. The program aims to foster residents' close looking and clinical skills,…

Sharp contrasts exist between recent examples of public dissection. This includes for-profit public dissections and not-for-profit, consented dissection and documentation. All have frequently become conflated and met with concern by the anatomical community. However, historically, anatomy and human tissue were accessible to all, as public…

The world faces complex and entangled environmental, health and social problems that can only be effectively grappled with if the research sector harnesses the knowledges and understandings of diverse cultures. Research education is a key site where more democratic and equitable processes of knowledge creation can take place. Drawing on de Sousa…

Museum-based mathematics exhibitions are increasingly prominent but under-theorized learning environments. In this study, we analyse the curriculum of United States mathematics exhibitions developed in the early 21st century in terms of their complex suggestions about the nature of mathematics and mathematical sense-making. We apply Rancière's…

During the unprecedented time of COVID-19, one art therapist noticed that her clients created images expressing their loneliness. To foster a sense of community catharsis, the art therapist worked with her clients to create an art display at a public mall to enable the general population to receive secondary therapeutic support for their own…

Across courses in the social sciences, instructors confront the challenge of how to teach (theories of) culture, yet no consensus exists as to what helps students best comprehend and digest its full complexity. This article offers a metaphorical and heuristic approach to culture that is accessible, multifaceted, and reflective of a wide range of…

Recent proliferation of participatory performance forms has prompted debate on the agency of participants. Consideration of agential potential must go beyond the enactment of the work, however, to assess how participatory experiences can be self-documented and how such records may inform artistic pedagogy. Through discussion of a creative learning…

How can we help students understand the Holocaust in its full historical complexity, particularly when they often come to class with misconceptions arising from the representation of the Holocaust in popular culture? Over a three-year period, Sam Ineson set out to integrate the historical Holocaust into his school's formal and informal curriculum,…