Education museums: historical educational discourse, typology and characteristics. The case of Spain

Abstract

Within a European framework, the current state of education museums in Spain is an observable reality and since their emergence at the beginning of the twenty-first century, they have played a role in heritage education. At the same time, in recent decades the history of education as an academic discipline has incorporated into its discourse a series of new objects related to the material culture of schools, thereby enriching education museums. In this article, our focus is on the contributions that the museology of education is making to educational historiography, highlighting both the development of a discourse community in the context of the museology of education and the new uses that education museums have for teaching and research. Our methodology is based on an analysis of the current panorama of education museums in Spain, capturing the landscape through categories based on the functions, collections, museum narratives, audiences, and management that explain their characteristics. The results drawn from our analysis show that education museums are becoming a resource for teaching, research, and sharing Spain’s historical educational heritage; at the same time they are also innovating the discourse of historiography and education.