The Educational Role of the Museum

Grounded in the solid strengths of its first edition, this updated and revised second edition, collates recent and important articles that address the relationships of museums and galleries to their audiences.

The Educational Role of the Museum has been entirely restructured and new papers have been added which make this an up-to-date presentation of front-running theory and practice.

Covering broad themes relevant to providing for all museum visitors, and also focusing specifically on educational groups, the book is set in four sections which sequentially:


chart the development of museum communication
relate constructivist learning theory to specific audiences with different learning needs
apply this learning theory to the development of museum exhibitions
pose questions about the way museums conceptualize audiences.
For any student of museum studies, and for professionals too, this book fuses theory with practice in a way that can only serve to enhance their knowledge of the field.

Eileen Hooper-Greenhill is well-known internationally for her work on museum communications and education. She has also been a lecturer in museum studies at the University of Leicester since 1980 and is the author of Museum annd Gallery Education(1991), Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge(1992) and Museums and Their Visitors (1994).