Anderson, D., de Cosson, A., & McIntosh, L. (Eds.). (2015).

Abstract

It’s taken me some time to finally sit down and write this review. The reason being: I am in two minds about this publication. On the one hand, I value its intent and commend the contributing authors for their insightful analyses. On the other hand, I feel somewhat let down and disappointed that the book does not deliver all that it promises. The editors note that the book focuses on “informing, broadening and enhancing the pedagogy ofmuseum education and the practice ofmuseum educators.” The 14 chapters are organized into three sections. The first section is entitled, “MuseumEducators SupportingDiverse Audiences.” Rather surprisingly, the notion of diverse did not refer to ethnic or cultural diversity. Rather, the term is used to refer to “under-researched” audiences. Thus, authors Chong, Wong, Hall, and Mehai discuss issues pertinent to home educators and teenagers, but also family groups. The second section, “MuseumEducators’ Practice,” is concerned with the ways in which museum educators contend with challenging topics within their practice. Calvert discusses considerations of death, Zhang explores reactions to natural history specimens, and Gibbons examines treatment of First Nation communities. Hu’s study, meanwhile, explores the skills needed by practitioners to communicate controversial topics in science, whilst Masterton considers the skills required when working with children with cognitive disabilities. The final section, “Museum Educators’ Praxis,” comprises a series of accounts documenting educators’ reflexive analyses of their practice. The chapters by Fehr, Smedley, Petrusa, Fuchs, and Sienkiewicz comprise a broad discussion of approaches employing ethnographicmethodology to examine the ways in which practitioners interpret and make sense of their efforts in programming and exhibition design. The quality of writing and themethodological rigor within each chapter are excellent. Each author displays an impressive ability to introduce the issues, to synthesize the relevant literature, and to outline the findings of their particular study in a clear and highly readable manner. But herein lies the rub and the basis of my dilemma. The 14 chapters each represent research conducted by a masters-level student for her dissertation at the University of British Columbia. Thus, each chapter is a discrete analysis and whilst together may address a range of concerns facing the field of museum education, each individual study focuses on one particular, often highly localized, issue. No attempt is made to draw together the various findings and identify broader themes emerging for the field. And, perhaps most worryingly given the academic provenance of this book, no attempt is made by the authors or the editors to identify and highlight new theoretical contributions pertaining to museum pedagogy.