American Art Museums: Sanctuary or Free-For-All?

Zolberg, Vera L.

doi:10.2307/2579052

Cited by 22 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…For example, Zolberg (1984) finds a similar pattern for art museums. In response to internal dilemmas and changing environmental pressures, art museums emphasized one goal over another at various times in their history.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“Wall Street” meets Wagner: Harnessing institutional heterogeneity

Sgourev

2011

Theor Soc

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If institutional heterogeneity tends overall to reduce survival chances, it may also persist and be harnessed to good use. This article investigates this ambivalence by looking at how institutional heterogeneity emerges, develops, and survives. An inductive study of the "Metropolitan Opera" archives suggests that what enables heterogeneity to survive and to withstand the pressure for homogenization is its inherent potential for "multivocality." The analysis shows how institutional discrepancies were bridged over through an opportunistic, "multivocal" action pattern, whereby the organization maneuvered between conflicting institutional demands, seeking to minimize dependence on any single constituency or evaluation principle. Maintaining discretionary options is essential in multi-dimensional space, where ambiguity makes optimization impractical. The trade-off in this action pattern includes remarkable adaptability and operational inefficiencies.Keywords Institutional heterogeneity . Survival . Multivocality . Opera What makes new organizations viable? The dominant thinking on founding and reproduction emphasizes the role of fit and continuity. New forms emerge when wellendowed actors see an opportunity to realize a set of interests and manage to frame them aptly within the social context, convincing others to go along (Fligstein 1996). The founding process involves assembling of resources, legitimating the new form and integrating it with the prevalent institutional order (Haveman and Rao 1997, p. 1614). Selection pressures and processes of socialization, interaction, and repetition (cf. DiMaggio and Powell 1983) serve to reinforce the reproduction of successful elements over time. Reproduction is aided by the difficulty of changing course once investments have been made in technologies and routines (Hannan and Freeman 1984).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“Wall Street” meets Wagner: Harnessing institutional heterogeneity

Sgourev

2011

Theor Soc

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“…Museums are expected to have educational programs in order to be viewed as legitimate by the public and by the museum community (DiMaggio, 1991;Zolberg, 1984) -by definition, museums educate. Adhering to this expectation is in the interest of a museum in that 'organizations which incorporate institutionalized myths are more legitimate, successful, and likely to survive' (Meyer and Rowan, 1991: 61).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Historically in the US, museums often claim they value education, although they do not devote the resources to it that would indicate that they really do. Education is a populist goal that museums take on in order to contribute to their long-term survival in late modern society (Zolberg, 1984); it is as important for museums to state that education is a goal to appear legitimate and to be able to cite high attendance figures as it is for their programs to actually 'educate'. (See DiMaggio and Useem, 1982, on support for the arts as means to legitimacy.)…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our study focuses on the lessons of interest to museums. Although our two organizations represent very different types of museums, they are both interested in persuading children to believe in the cultural lessons they promote through their education programs (see DiMaggio, 1991;Zolberg, 1984, and on the centrality of education within the missions of most US museums).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Early and mid-20th century museums typically continued to claim education as a value, but offered little of a concrete nature toward that goal. Not until the mid-and late 20th century did museums in Europe and the US counter charges of elitism with an explicit programmatic focus on education, for example, by adding educator positions to their staffs and providing educational services to a wider range of visitors (Alexander, 1996a(Alexander, , 1996bDiMaggio, 1991;Zolberg, 1984).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Museums and Childhood

Milligan

Brayfield

2004

Childhood

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Contemporary museums define educational programs for children as a central and straightforward component of their stated missions. We problematize these programs in our critical discussion of the role of the museum as a source of non-classroom education and the centrality of these lessons in the maintenance of the museum as an organization. Our exploratory study investigates educational programs for children within two traditionally adult-centered museum settings in the US: (1) an architectural museum in a mid-sized city and (2) an art gallery on a university campus. We compare the organizational goals of the two museums with respect to their programs for children and the attempts of museum educators to accomplish these goals through specific programs. Based on interviews with museum officials and field observations, we argue that museum programs attempt to promote both cultural and content lessons to children and teachers through school tours within museum spaces and that their success is tied to the training and beliefs of tour guides, the suitability of museum spaces for children as a participatory audience, and the techniques used to control children’s social behavior.

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City Cultures and Post‐Modern Lifestyles

Featherstone¹

1994

Post‐Fordism

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American Art Museums: Sanctuary or Free-For-All?

Cited by 22 publications

References 0 publications

“Wall Street” meets Wagner: Harnessing institutional heterogeneity

“Wall Street” meets Wagner: Harnessing institutional heterogeneity

Museums and Childhood

City Cultures and Post‐Modern Lifestyles

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