Conferences of the Center of Excellence for Museum Education
2021: Audience Development – Theory and Practice
2nd International Conference of the Center of Excellence for Museum Education, November 9 & 10, 2021, digital event
Building on the first international conference “Interdisciplinary Research on Museums as Informal Learning Spaces – New Ways and Concepts” in 2019 [link to info below] and based on the results of visitor studies in Leibniz research museums, two main themes were identified for the second international conference. The first focused on non-visitors to museums: who does not come to museums, and who from this target group can we still reach – and how? The second focused on socially disadvantaged and educationally disadvantaged groups and how museums can better reach and support them. The conference emphasized the interplay of theory and practice in both topics. Sessions were designed to provide theoretical input, e.g. through a keynote or short presentations, followed by case studies from museum practice presented in smaller breakout sessions.
2019: Interdisciplinary Research on Museums as Informal Learning Spaces – New Ways and Concepts
1st International Conference, December 18 & 19, 2019, Berlin, Germany
Museums are central places for the preservation of knowledge and for research. At the same time – and some would say primarily – museums are spaces where this knowledge can be passed on, communicated and shared. They have the potential to act as hubs of public dialogue, where a public that increasingly relies on fact-based and discursive knowledge has the opportunity to gain insights, develop its own ideas and opinions, and encounter people who challenge its fixed view of the world. Yet much is still unknown about why and what people learn in museums and how they interact with the exhibition space.
Our first international conference explicitly addressed the museum as an informal learning space. Researchers from around the world discussed questions such as: What skills do visitors bring with them to museums? Why do they choose to visit museums in the first place? And who doesn’t visit museums? All of these questions are intended to help develop the museum into a place where people are invited to participate in expanding our knowledge of the world.
