This is a wonderful collection of views encompassing the most important aspects of learning and museums. Best wishes for your book. The photo is a gem!!

Best wishes

Janette

My current research is devoted to developing a manuscript entitled (tentatively) “Democracy and Museums: The Social Responsibility of Museums.” In recent years, there has been an increased demand that museums serve a public function broader than preservation, collection, and display. In 2002, the American Association of Museums called for “civic engagement” by museums. Journals with titles such as “Museum & Society” (launched in 2003) and Museums & Social Issues (published since 2006) — the latter addresses “social issues and the engagement of museums in these issues” — are now in circulation. Professional meetings increasingly address the responsibility of museums toward social concerns.

This new wave of interest in social responsibility for museums is only the latest resurgence of a longstanding theme in the history of museums. Almost 70 years ago, Theodore Low published a monograph entitled “The Museum as Social Instrumental,” addressed primarily to art museums. This short book is one of a number of writings dating back to the origins of museums, encouraging them to be socially active through their educational function.

John Cotton Dana has long been recognized as an advocate of a social role for museums; and a century earlier this view was integral to the founding of Charles Willson Peale’s American museum.

On the level of practice, the engagement of museums in social change is debated in the profession. On a more theoretical level, various justifications have been advanced for linking museums and social action ranging from economic considerations – if museums are “relevant” to local issues, or if they address topics that relate to local (or global) civic concerns, they will be able to attract visitors and overcome economic difficulties – to more moralistic rationales that museums have an obligation to contribute to major social concerns, such as sustainable practices (going “green”) or supporting various social agendas.

Yet, neither the practical consequences of such actions for museums, nor their theoretical basis has been thoroughly examined. I argue that:

a) Education is the primary purpose for museums (as outlined in my chapter on Museum Education in S. Macdonald, editor,” Blackwell Companion to Museum Studies,” 2006).

b) Progressive education is the appropriate educational theory for museums. (I have discussed this subject in my various articles on constructivist educational theory.)

c) Social concerns are integral to progressive education, as carefully elucidated in John Dewey’s writings.