Progressive Museum Practice: John Dewey and Democracy

Preeminent museum education theorist George E. Hein explores the work, philosophy, and impact of educational reformer John Dewey and his importance for museums. Hein traces current practice in museum education to Dewey's early 20th-century ideas about education, democracy, and progress toward improving society, and in so doing provides a rare history of museum education as a profession. Giving special attention to the progressive individuals and institutions who followed Dewey in developing the foundations for the experiential learning that is considered best practice today, Hein demonstrates a parallel between contemporary theories about education and socio-political progress and, specifically, the significance of museums for sustaining and advancing a democratic society.

Table of Contents:
Introduction; Chapter 1 Educational Theory; Chapter 2 John Dewey and Museums; Chapter 3 Charles Willson Peale and the Birth of the Democratic Museum; Chapter 4 Museum Education in the Progressive Era; Chapter 5 John Dewey and Albert Barnes; Chapter 6 Progressive Education in Art Museums; Chapter 7 Museum Education in the 1960s; Chapter 8 Progressive Museum Practice in the Twenty-first Century;

About the Author :
George E. Hein is Professor Emeritus at Lesley University in the Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences and Senior Research Associate with the Program Evaluation and Research Group (PERG), which he co-founded in 1976. During 2006-2007, Hein was president of Technical Education Research Centers (TERC), a non-profit educational research and development organization. He has been Howard Hughes Medical Institute Visiting Scholar, California Institute of Technology; Visiting Faculty Museum Studies Program, Leicester University; Fulbright Research Fellow, King's College; a Research Associate at the Museum of Science in Boston; and Museum Guest Scholar at the Getty Research Institute. Dr. Hein was the founding director of the first Lesley University PhD program in Educational Studies and has been a major contributor to literature in the fields of visitor research and museum education for three decades, including the seminal books Learning in the Museum and Museums: Places of Learning (with Mary Alexander), articles in periodicals such as Journal of Museum Education, Curator: The Museum Journal, and The Exhibitonist, and chapters in several important edited volumes.

Review :
Infused with Hein's trademark warmth and fair-mindedness, this book will spark rich discussion about John Dewey and our progressive museum education heritage, and is sure to be welcomed across the field.--Rika Burnham, Head of Education, The Frick Collection Hein pushes us beyond the pedagogy of progressive education to acknowledge its moral core--Dewey's commitment to social justice and democracy. Along the way he upends some misconceptions about how novel current thinking actually is. An exhaustive and invaluable contribution to the continuing story of the history, meaning and contributions of museum education.--Leslie Bedford, Ph.D, Leadership in Museum Education Program, Bank Street College of Education We can never remind ourselves and each other too often that democracy is and remains a work in progress, never finished, never complete. Democracy is always defined as much by whom and what it excludes as by whom and what it includes. In his new book George Hein reexamines the historical roots and the meaning of the concept of democracy within museums and educational practices. Drawing from a wide range of references from across the world he explores how museums have attempted to be 'in the service of democracy' and 'provide education that leads to better informed, critical citizens for a more egalitarian society.' As the concept of democracy continuously expands into more radical and direct forms in the 21st century, museums correspondingly wrestle with the challenges and obligations of public participations and organisational forms that facilitate them.--Jette Sandahl, Director, Museum of Copenhagen Through the examples of far-sighted people like John Dewey, Charles Willson Peale, Anna Billings Gallup and others, Professor Hein shows us how a combination of progressive pedagogical practice and progressive political views can significantly support museums in their role of encouraging democracy and inclusiveness. In doing so it emphasises that the educational role of museums is a primary one, one that is too important to be marginalised by curatorial acquisitiveness. --Des Griffin, Gerard Krefft Fellow and former Director, The Australian Museum, Sydney "The study of John Dewey's influence on American educational thought and practice appears to be inexhaustible. Each succeeding generation discovers him anew and both records the impact of his work on inherited educational institutions and mines his writings for ideas about how to reconstitute these institutions toward more progressive and democratic ends. George E. Hein's new books adds an important contribution to this effort by focusing on museums as educational institutions and by capturing Dewey's personal and theoretical commitment to progressive museum practice. This is a first-rate piece of scholarship that deepens readers' understanding of the enduring value of Dewey's approach and the history of museum education, a poorly treated subfield of the history of education that the publication of this book helps to correct. Here Hein (emer., Lesley Univ.) applies Dewey's foundational thinking about what should be the social purposes of educational institutions to museums, and advocates for a kind of museum education in support of an authentic and transformative democratic social order. The book concludes with a chapter that surveys some recent manifestations of progressive museum programming, which in a variety of ways bears the mark of Dewey's legacy. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels."--CHOICE