Viewer-Centered Learning in the Museum: Tensions in Children’s Books About Why and How

Art museum educators have drawn on contemporary learning theories emphasizing viewers’ meaning-making as individual, constructed, contextual, and subject to interpretation. This learner-centered turn toward meaning-making and away from the object and the discipline of art applies especially to young children’s learning, which needs to be scaffolded. Children’s picture books are a tool for introducing young learners to the museum and making meaning from art. Content analysis of children’s picture books reveals portrayals of museums as temples for passive contemplation as well as active learning; not all learning strategies emphasize meaning-making, and children work against and with the museum to connect their own experiences to meaning-making. Teachers using children’s literature to introduce the art museum as a viewer-centered place of meaning-making should use care in selecting books and consider counternarratives to frame the books’ stories to suit their purpose, methods, and learning outcomes for visiting the museum.