In this article, Avner Segall explores some pedagogical processes in the context of two museums in Washington, DC, that focus on difficult knowledge, the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. In doing so, Segall's aim is not to explore the museums as a whole or provide a comprehensive…

Ethnology museums are pedagogical. As educators attempting to make sense of how museums teach about the world, the authors of this article are especially interested in how ethnology museums curate otherness through objects, texts, and spaces, and how these combine to present a narrative of others. Ellsworth has referred to this as the…

In late 2006, the Columbus Museum of Art adopted a new framework that established creativity as the lens for learning and visitor experiences. When the Columbus Museum of Art committed to creativity as a focus and lens for learning, the work and nature of its education department adapted and changed. What is a museum's responsibility to its…

Thematic art museum education programmes--programmes where visitors make meaning of various artworks in relation to a specific preselected theme--are conspicuous within interactive museum education on both sides of the Atlantic. How do thematic programmes influence visitors' experiences with art? In this article, I explore this question based…

As access to high speed internet connections and digital tools increase, many museums are incorporating online and/or blended (a combination of onsite and online) programming in their portfolio to deepen work with existing audiences and/or reach new ones. To leverage the potential of ongoing innovation in the tech sector, museum educators will…

This study investigated the use of different pedagogical techniques to create an intellectually engaging experience for middle school students who visited a traveling exhibition from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum at a non-museum host site: the University of North Georgia Dahlonega's Library and Technology Center. The findings of this…

Life exhibitions in Japanese science museums (SMs) face difficulties in coping with rapid progress in the life sciences owing to certain constraints around the frequency of exhibit renovations, and the Japanese indigenous understanding of the natural world (Shizen) that Japanese visitors unconsciously bring with them. To what extent do current…

There is a long tradition of museum research assessing visitors' personal background. In this article, we suggest an insightful way to enhance and intensify visitor analyses and adopt a more integrative approach. To this end, we draw attention to Latent Class Analysis (LCA), a classification method that allows us to investigate visitor profiles…

This paper examines the role of museums in the creation of anglophone stories in the USA, and how the (non-)translation of signs contributes to create a narrative of exclusion vis-à-vis other groups, notably native Americans, the Spanish, and the French. Particular attention is paid to open-air museums that preserve old buildings and areas…

At the Deutsches Museum in München, we established in the department of education during more than 35 years a series of historical experiments and constructed apparatus for pedagogic purposes. We use these reproductions mainly for continuing teacher education within our department. At the exhibitions of the Deutsches Museum there exist many…

As she reviewed participant feedback from the out-of-school time (OST) youth development program she managed at the New-York Historical Society Museum and Library (N-YHS), the author was excited to recognize a pattern. Many of the teen participants wrote responses like "I am proud of what my team was able to accomplish" and "I…

In this article, we explore how visitors engage with a science museum exhibit that displays controversial topics. Through a case study methodology, we focus on the Brazilian exhibit "Preventing Youth Pregnancy" that delves into teen pregnancy, sexual practices, and sexually transmitted diseases. Using the lens of science communication…

The goal for this research is to articulate and test a new hybrid Augmented Reality (AR) environment for conceptual understanding. From the theoretical lens of embodied interaction, we have designed a multi-user participatory simulation called ARfract where visitors in a science museum can learn about complex scientific concepts on the refraction…

The present study, aiming to develop nature culture in primary school students and to help them to become acquainted with their close environment, is a quasi-experimental study. Museum education activities were conducted with the study group which consisted of 128 fourth-grade primary school students. At the end of the study, the students gained…

Eighth-grade students from three school districts in three small towns in Crosby County, Texas, received academic credit for working together with the biannual Crosby County Pioneer Memorial Museum summer travel education program. Each of the three districts radiate from a small town. They were within one county, and the museum was located in the…