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Making Meaning on the Mall: The Smithsonian Folklife Festival as a Constructivist Museum
Author(s) -
Belanus Betty J.,
Fernandez Katie
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
curator: the museum journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.312
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 2151-6952
pISSN - 0011-3069
DOI - 10.1111/cura.12084
Subject(s) - visitor pattern , exhibition , meaning (existential) , folklife , visual arts , constructivist teaching methods , sociology , museum education , aesthetics , art , pedagogy , psychology , anthropology , teaching method , computer science , folklore , psychotherapist , programming language
George Hein, museum education theorist, asserts that there are five qualities a “constructivist exhibition” must have (1998, 35). The authors, assembling observations of visitor engagement and qualitative data from the 2013 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, compare the event to Hein's constructivist exhibition criteria, to assess whether the Festival allowed visitors to “make meaning,” and to see whether visitor meaning‐making meshed with the goals of the curators. The answers have the potential to help improve visitor experiences and learning outcomes at museums and other curated cultural events.