Family matters: The role of university museums in intergenerational learning

Abstract

Working within university museums in England, both museum educators and faculty staff are comfortable with pre-defined formal learning groups and subjects that ‘tie into the curriculum’. However, when engaging with ‘the wider community’ there is no curriculum and groups are selfselecting and ephemeral – so how do we design, market and map this kind of informal learning? One method of attracting informal or ‘free-choice’ learners is through the development of a family learning program. Such programs often represent a marketing coup and a boost to visitor figures but they also raise questions about style of delivery, modes of assessment and, most importantly, the validity of such learning within a university context. This paper discusses how family learning can meet university public engagement objectives and provide university students with key transferable skills through innovative ‘family learning volunteer’ programs. Finally, it illustrates that intergenerational learning is an important area of potential growth for university museums. What do we mean by the term ‘family’? Before attempting to define family learning, it is perhaps helpful to examine the term ‘family’ as it can mean different things in different cultures and countries. To some it is the extended family of parents, children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. To others it is the nuclear family of parent/s and child/ren or perhaps the step or ‘blended’ family which occurs when separated/widowed parents form a new relationship and two families join or blend together. For the purposes of this paper, and also in the programs that are run at the University of Reading Museums & Special Collections, ‘family’ means adults and children together; what FALK & DIERKING (2000: 110n2) describe as “an intergenerational group of adults and children who self-define themselves as family (in other words not necessarily biologically related)”. Whilst it is appreciated that families can also be adult couples or made up of all adult members, as museum visitors, they tend to behave as adult groups do rather than as adults with children do (FALK & Dierking 2000). What is ‘family learning’? Family learning is a fluid term with different meanings in different countries and hence attempting to pin down family learning pedagogy is also difficult. In Ireland, family learning is family literacy, enabling adults to gain literacy skills but not engaging with the children. In Poland, family learning is about parenting skills and family interaction. In the UK, family learning is often linked to numeracy and literacy skills of the whole family. The University of Reading Museums and Special Collections follow the practical definition of family learning described by ALEXANDER & CLYNE (1995). Family learning is identified as having five distinct aspects: informal learning within the family; family members learning together; learning about roles, relationships and responsibilities in relation to the stages of family life, including parenting education; learning how to understand, take responsibility and make decisions in relation to wider society, in which the family is a foundation for citizenship; learning how to deal with agencies that serve families.