Theorizing Equity in the Museum

Bronwyn Bevan, PhD, worked at the Exploratorium in San Francisco for almost 25 years, starting as a project coordinator for a program working with teachers, developing collaborations with universities and CBOs, and ultimately overseeing research and serving as a member of the senior management team. Her research examines how learning can be organized to empower individuals and communities. Bahia Ramos is director of arts at the Wallace Foundation. She leads the team responsible for the strategy and implementation of the foundation’s work in areas including building audiences for the arts and promoting arts education for young people. Before arriving at Wallace, Ramos served as program director of the arts for the Knight Foundation. In that role, she built national partnerships and initiatives with organizations such as ArtPlace and Sundance, and worked on the local level to bring arts experiences to diverse audiences and neighborhoods.

• List of Figures; List of Contributors; Preface; Chapter 1 Spatial Justice Theory: Working Towards Justice: Reclaiming our Science Center; Chapter 2 Critical Pedagogy and Critical Theory: Museum Education and Critical Pedagogy: Re-imagining Power in the Art Museum; Chapter 3 Feminism, Intersectionality, and Decolonization Theories: "The Price We Have to Be Willing to Pay is Ourselves": Discussing Illusions of Inclusion in Science Centers and Museums; Chapter 4 Theories of Identity in Communities of Practice: Centering Equity and Access: An Examination of a Natural History Museum’s Mentored Research Youth Program; Chapter 5 Foucauldian Discourses of Power: Discourses of Dissent: How Competing Agendas Prevent or Enable Sustainable Change Taking Place within Twenty-First Century Art Museums; Chapter 6 Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Feminist Theory: Female-Responsive Exhibit Design: Explorations of a Research-Practice Partnership; Chapter 7 Theories of Rightful Presence in Socio-Cultural Contexts: Vicious Cycles: Museums Marginalize the Museum Educators They Hire to Engage Marginalized Communities; Chapter 8 Social Models of Disability and Museum Research: Inclusion and Accessibility in Science Museums: Voices from Brazil Chapter 9 Embodied Theory and Lived Experience: Museums are Burning: Dare We Engage a Liberatory Imagination in Practice and Research?; Index