New Intersections for History Education in Museums

Description

All museums face questions of relevancy and how to best respond to audiences in ways that meaningfully engages them with the museum collection. The traditional model of museums acting as cabinets of curiosities that prioritize collections over audiences is being re-shaped, as they aim to become transformational visitor-centered institutions.Footnote1 This shift is particularly relevant to history museums and historic sites, where it has become clear that attendance cannot be sustained based purely on visitors’ interest in history for the sake of history. History museums and historic sites cannot “remain stagnant as visitors, technologies, interests, and the world around us change.”Footnote2 The role of education for history museums in the twenty-first century consists of finding new ways to make history meaningful, developing modifications for a range of learner needs and stages, making tangible connections to other disciplines and skills, and facilitating personal connections to content. The core societal value of history sites has been demonstrated in seminal surveys such as the one conducted by the authors of The Presence of the Past, which concluded that historic sites and museums are the most trusted sources for accessing information about the past and help strengthen ideas of heritage, belonging, and authenticity.Footnote3 History museums are poised to leverage this significance in new ways as we move into the twenty-first century, where they have the potential to adopt new learning agent roles and design transformative education experiences.Footnote4 The articles in the themed section of this issue illuminate a variety of ways that history museums are adapting to the changing landscape in an effort to make stories from the past and historic collections more relevant to both existing and new audiences.

Keywords

Museums

Historical sites

Remembrance

Digitalisation

Heritage