Reimagining antiracist possibilities of single-visit art museum field trips after the COVID-19 pause

Abstract

Although the single-visit field trip has long been the most common program museums offer to K-12 students and can provide opportunities for the meaningful development of critical thinking skills, findings from a participatory action research (PAR) study on Whiteness in museum education indicate that single visit field trips may not be conducive to – and may even actively undermine – teaching antiracism. This tension has only become exacerbated in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which laid bare systemic racial inequities, including national and global health infrastructures. These disruptions to the museum teaching status quo call for a renewed commitment to and effective implementation of antiracist museum education. Antiracist pedagogy relies on the development of trust and relationships among educators and participants, whereas the single visit field trip, by contrast, is usually a singular moment within a child’s overall education. If museums truly seek to contribute to antiracist (un)learning among their visitors, they should reconsider priorities for single-visit field trips. Museums must align these findings with what is logistically possible and/or necessary, and implement more sustained engagement strategies to support antiracist learning objectives, such as strengthening partnerships with classroom educators, maintaining small group sizes, and/or restructuring to a multi-visit field trip approach.