This is a book about adult education in the sphere of public museums and art galleries. It aims to enrich and expand dialogue and understanding amongst adult and community educators, curators, artists, directors, and cultural activists who work within and beyond the walls of these institutions. The various chapters take up the complex and interconnected pedagogics of subjectivity, identity, meaning making and interpretation, knowledge, authority, prescription, innovation, and creativity. The contributors are a combination of scholars, professors, graduate students, heritage and cultural adult educators, artists, curators and researchers from Canada, United States, Iceland, England, Scotland, Denmark, Portugal, Italy and Malta. Collectively, they challenge us to think about the dialectics of passivity and engagement, didactics and learning, gender neutrality and radicality, and neutrality and risk-taking amongst a collage of artworks and artefacts, poetry and installations, collections and exhibits, illusion and reality, curatorial practice and learning, argument and narrative, and struggle and possibility that define and shape modern day art and culture institutions. The chapters, set amongst the discursive politics of neoliberalism and patriarchy, racism and religious intolerance, institutional neutrality and tradition, capitalism and neo-colonialism, ecological devastation and social injustice, take up the spirit and ideals of the radical and feminist traditions of adult education and their emphases on cultural participation and knowledge democracy, agency and empowerment, justice and equity, intellectual growth and transformation, critical social and self reflection, activism and risk-taking, and a fundamental belief in the power of art, dialogue, reflection, ideological and social critique and imaginative learning.

Enlivened with many examples and the words of program planners, instructors, and participants, this book can show you a whole new world for your museum programs, and help you design programs that will allow your adult learners to enter that exciting and potentially life-changing world. Visit our website for sample chapters!

Bonnie Sachatello-Sawyer and her co-authors have taken an important study and turned it into an intriguing, readable, and practical book. Adult learners provide a unique opportunity for museum educators. But what are adult learners looking for? What motivates them to take a class or attend a museum-sponsored activity? What do planners and instructors need to know to maximize the experience for participants? The authors analyzed a wide variety of programs from the perspective of planners, instructors, and participants. They discovered what works and what doesn't, and they've distilled this knowledge into twelve basic steps you can use to design truly meaningful experiences for your museum's adult programs. Visit the authors' web page

This book, which is intended for individuals involved in the education of adults and museum education, explores the potential role of museums in creation of a learning society, possibilities for collaboration between museums and adult education providers, access to museum resources by adult learners, and training and staff development. The following papers are included: "Museums Association" (Mark Taylor); "NIACE [National Institute of Adult Continuing Education]: The National Organisation for Adult Learning" (Alan Tuckett); "Introduction" (Alan Chadwick, Annette Stannett); "Gradgrind Driving Queen Mab's Chariot: What Museums Have (and Have Not) Learnt from Adult Education" (David Anderson); "An Adult Educator's Perspective" (Lalage Bown); "A Museum Educator's Perspective" (Eilean Hooper-Greenhill); "The Adult Learner" (David Jones); "Adult Programmes at the King's Lynn Museums"" (Faye Kalloniatis); "Community-Based Adult Education Programmes at the Geffrye Museum" (Steve Hemming); "Multicultural Education: The Mughal Tent Project at the Victoria and Albert Museum" (Shireen Akbar); "Age Exchange: The Potential of Reminiscence" (Pam Schweitzer); "Museums, Means and Motivation: Adult Learning in a Family Context" (Richard Wood); "Access to Museums by Adult Learners with Disabilities" (William Kirby); "Welcoming Adults with Learning Disabilities at Wakefield Museums and Galleries" (Sarah Scaife); "Programmes for Disadvantaged People at Dulwich Picture Gallery" (Gillian Wolfe); "The Open Museum: A Case Study in Co-operation" (Diana Coben, Margarette Lincoln);"Museum Training Institute" (David Wear) (which includes an appendix titled "A Guide to Underpinning Knowledge and Evidence Requirements"); "City and Guilds of London Institute" (Fiona Longmore); "Work Placements at the National Trust" (Suzanne Whitehead); and "Prospects for Future Collaboration" (Hazel Moffat). The book contains 28 references. (MN)

Over the last twenty years the educational role of the museum has come to be central to its mission. There are now far more educational opportunities, new spaces, new interfaces - both digital and physical, and a growing number of education and interpretation departments, educational curators and public engagement programmes. Despite these developments, however, higher education has remained a marginal collaborator compared to primary and secondary schools and to other forms of adult learning. This has meant that the possibilities for partnerships between universities, colleges, museums and galleries has remained relatively unexplored, especially in relation to their potential for generating innovative patterns of research and learning. This book addresses the key issues which are preventing such partnerships and examines how to enable more effective and creative connections between museums and higher education. The authors identify conceptual and practical barriers and explore whether current academic models are fit for purpose. They argue that as pressures mount on public educational resources around the world, there needs to be an urgent increase in the exchange of knowledge across these sectors and the forging of world-class scholarly partnerships. Examples of research undertaken internationally offer best practice models for collaboration and integration. This book will be compulsory reading for museum and educational specialists and those interested in engaging in museum/higher education partnerships. It will also be of interest to those involved in policy and decision-making in education, the museum sector and national and local government.

The goal of this book is to cull from the last NSF conference, the "best ideas about how children interact with objects & through that interaction acquire new understandings, attitudes, and feelings."

Sponsored by the Museum Education Roundtable