The Impact of a Museum Travelling Exhibition on Middle School Teachers and Students from Rural, Low-income Homes
Department
History and Philosophy
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-25-2016
Abstract
Schools may be places of learning, but a great deal of learning occurs outside of school. A growing body of literature investigates how school field trips allow rural students to make real-life connections with their school curriculum. This paper contributes to that area of research by describing how students from five middle schools in the United States responded to a travelling museum exhibition hosted at a non-museum site. The authors explore the impact of the exhibition on students from poor, rural backgrounds, discussing how it helped them to engage with themes such as freedom of expression, democracy, citizenship and Holocaust education. The results show that, by connecting curricular content with real-life situations, field trips such as this have the potential to change not only students’ understanding of the curriculum, but also their teachers’ estimation of their abilities.
Journal Title
International Review of Education
Journal ISSN
1573-0638
Volume
62
Issue
3
First Page
355
Last Page
374
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1007/s11159-016-9566-5