Cultural institutions and adult education

Abstract

This chapter explores cultural institutions (libraries, museums, zoos, natural places) as sites of adult education. As places of learning outside formal educational settings, they have long been overlooked as teaching resources and as viable sites for fostering civil societies and social change.

Reexamining Theories of Adult Learning and Adult Development Through the Lenses of Public Pedagogy

“…Grenier (2010), for example, focuses on how play in museums can “support opportunities for creativity, social interaction, and adult learning” (p. 78), because play involves the affective realm and allows for openness and ambiguity rather than a rational quest for the right answer; this ambiguity “allows visitors to create their own meanings and/or make new discoveries” (p. 81) as they learn new ways of thinking about themselves and of relating to others in society. And Taylor (2010) discusses how in cultural institutions such as museums and zoos, “Each object or specimen exhibited has its own complex presence, offering the learner the possibility of multiple interpretations” (p. 10). He further explains that “the exhibition (live or artificial) is a changing or a false reality; a depiction of circumstance where objects and messages from one time and culture are brought into contact with learners from another specific time and culture” (p. 10), thus revealing the tentative and changing nature of self and of knowledge construction.…”

“…More recently, Wright and Sandlin (2009), Tisdell and Thompson (2007), and Tisdell (2008) have posited that adult educators need to pay more attention to realms of public pedagogy such as popular culture because adults learn from the practice of cultural consumption (and production) in their everyday lives. Finally, in a recent New Directions volume, Borg and Mayo (2010), Grenier (2010), Packer and Ballantyne (2010), and Taylor (2010) call for adult educators to focus more attention on how informal cultural institutions such as museums, zoos, botanical gardens, and parks help shape dominant forms of knowledge and hegemonic representations, as well as how they can be sites of contestation and resistance, a point we return to, below.…”

“…For example, in Mezirow’s (1995) construction of learning, adults operate with particular meaning perspectives that he argues are “for the most part culturally assimilated” (p. 42). Others (Brookfield, 1986; Graham, 1989; Taylor, 2010; Tisdell, 2008) also argue that our identities in large part are shaped through the process of interacting with popular and media culture as well as with cultural institutions such as museums. After a brief introduction to modernist adult learning and development theories, we focus on how master narratives of adult identity—who we are with regard to race, class, gender, sexuality, and so on—are portrayed to us and perpetuated through various public pedagogies.…”

Towards post-industrial foodways: Public pedagogy, spaces, and the struggle for cultural legitimacy

“…Public pedagogy has emerged as a viable frame for exploring the learning occurring outside the formal education system in physical and virtual spaces as varied as museums, zoos, television programs, and activist events (Biesta, 2012; Ellsworth, 2005; Hayes and Gee, 2010; Rich, 2011; Taylor, 2010). Shifting attention from school institutions and classrooms, public pedagogy stresses the notion that the mundane spaces of daily life, “where people actually live their lives and where meaning is produced, assumed, and contested” have pedagogic salience (Giroux, 2000: 355).…”

Restorying the present by revisiting the past: Unexpected moments of discovery and illumination through museum learning

“…We describe informal learning as unstructured, undefined and outside of pre-determined time commitments (Groen & Kawalilak, 2014). Narrowing our gaze to informal learning within a museum context, Taylor (2010) described this as ‘the incidental unplanned and unconscious learning that is most prevalent as visitors wander around’ (p. 66). Nonformal learning, on the other hand, “is any organised, intentional and explicitly designed effort to promote learning to enhance the quality of life through non-school settings” (Heimlich, 1993, p. 2), which, in a museum context, refers to attending planned museum events or participating in activities such as tours.…”