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Professional Development

The ultimate guide to museum studies: degrees, careers, and insights.

Embark on a fascinating journey through the realm of museum studies , an interdisciplinary field that blends history, culture, art, and science with the practical aspects of museum management and education.

This guide offers an in-depth look at the museum studies degree , covering everything from its definition to career opportunities, and the challenges and benefits of pursuing a career in this passion-driven field.

Definition of Museum Studies

Museum Studies is a broad academic field that looks into the history, goals, and operations of museums from different angles.

This subject area combines many aspects of museum work, creating a detailed picture of what goes into running a museum.

One of the main topics in Museum Studies is curation, which is all about choosing, arranging, and explaining the items that are shown in a museum.

Museum Studies students learn how curators use their deep knowledge and understanding of their visitors to plan exhibitions. These exhibitions aim to educate and interest visitors by telling a story or expressing a theme through the thoughtful placement of artifacts and artworks.

Another important part of this field is preservation, which focuses on how to care for and maintain objects in a museum’s collection.

Preservation is not just about keeping objects in good physical condition. It also involves understanding the cultural, historical, and scientific importance of items and making sure these aspects are kept alive for future generations.

Museum Studies also includes museum education, which is all about making learning happen inside museums.

This part looks at how museums can act like schools, using their collections to help people learn and understand different things.

Another important part of Museum Studies is administration. This area looks at the behind-the-scenes work of running a museum, like finding money to operate, managing staff, advertising, and making rules.

It looks at how museums work as groups and the jobs they do in their neighborhoods and the larger world.

Museum Studies combines topics from anthropology, art history, and archaeology.

Anthropology helps us learn about human cultures, while art history gives us a better understanding of art and its styles, and archaeology teaches us about past societies and their objects.

This mix of topics lets students see museums from every angle.

Museum Studies started to be its own subject in the 1960s, but people have been studying and critiquing museum practices for much longer.

Over the years, the field has changed and adapted to fit new social changes and technological developments.

Today’s Museum Studies programs show these changes, taking on new issues like digital transformation, which looks at how digital tech can make museum experiences better, and cultural inclusivity, which encourages diverse representation and access in museums.

In short, Museum Studies is a wide and changing field that brings together many subjects to help us understand how complex and interesting museums are.

As museums keep changing to fit the world around them, so does this exciting and always relevant subject.

Different Levels of Museum Studies Degrees

There are different degrees you can get in Museum Studies. Each degree level has its own rules for getting in, what you learn, how deep you go, how long it takes, and how much it costs.

Bachelor’s Degree

The first degree you can get is a Bachelor’s degree in Museum Studies.

You usually need a high school diploma or something similar to get into this program. It lasts about 3-4 years and helps students understand what museums do and why they matter.

Students learn basic stuff about museums like their history, how to manage collections, how to design exhibits, and more. They also learn about the different areas that make up Museum Studies, like history, art, anthropology, archaeology, education, and business.

Master’s Degree

After the Bachelor’s degree, the next step is the Master’s degree in Museum Studies.

You usually need a Bachelor’s degree in Museum Studies or something similar to get into a Master’s program. Some programs might ask that you have some work experience in a museum or similar place.

Master’s degrees usually last 1-2 years and go deeper into the topic. They let students focus on what they’re really interested in, like teaching in museums, curating, managing museums, or how digital technology is changing museums.

These programs often include chances for students to use what they’ve learned in real life, like internships or big final projects.

The highest degree you can get in Museum Studies is a PhD.

You usually need a Master’s degree to get into a PhD program, and you need to show that you can do research. PhD programs can last up to 5 years and involve a lot of research on one specific area of Museum Studies.

PhD students are expected to add something new to the field with their big research project, also known as a dissertation.

How much a Museum Studies degree costs can change a lot based on things like the degree level, the school, and where the school is located.

For example, private schools and schools outside of your home country usually cost more. Other costs can include books, housing, and other costs of living.

Students can look for scholarships, grants, work-study programs, or loans to help pay for these costs.

In the end, there are different degrees in Museum Studies for different goals.

As you go from a Bachelor’s degree to a Master’s degree and then a PhD, you go from learning the basics to learning more specific things and doing your own research.

Each level takes different amounts of time and money, so students should think about these things when planning their studies in Museum Studies.

Typical Coursework and Skills Gained

Museum Studies courses cover a mix of different topics and teach students the ins and outs of working in a museum.

Museum History: One of the first courses students take is about the history of museums. This course teaches students about how museums have changed over time. It covers everything from how museums went from private collections to public places, to how the way we collect, display, and explain objects has changed. It also looks at how changes in society have affected museums.

Museum Management: This course teaches students about how to run a museum. It covers things like how to plan for the future, manage people, budget money, market the museum, build relationships with the public, and raise funds. It also talks about legal and ethical issues in running a museum.

Collection Care and Management: This course teaches students about how to care for and manage a museum’s collection. It covers things like how to handle artifacts, report on their condition, prevent them from getting damaged, and make rules for the collection.

Exhibition Development: This course is all about how to create and design museum exhibitions. Students learn about every step in the process, from coming up with an idea and planning it out, to designing and setting it up, to evaluating it. The course also covers things like how to plan what to explain, how to make sure everyone can access it, and how to engage visitors.

Museum Education: This course looks at the role of museums in education. Students learn about how to create and carry out educational programs, make learning materials, engage with different kinds of audiences, and evaluate how well their educational efforts are working.

Skills Gained

Museum Studies programs don’t just teach theory, they also help students build practical skills that they can use in the real world.

Creating Exhibitions: Students learn how to put together exhibitions. This includes picking and explaining objects, coming up with themes, and telling stories. This skill is very important for jobs like museum curators and exhibition coordinators.

Handling Collections: Students get hands-on experience in dealing with, organizing, and preserving artifacts. These skills are crucial for jobs like collection managers and conservators.

Making Educational Programs: Students learn how to plan and carry out educational programs, activities, and learning materials for all kinds of audiences. This skill is helpful for jobs in museum education and public programs.

Preserving Artifacts: Learning the methods used to keep and restore artifacts is another key skill. This knowledge is important for conservation jobs within museums.

Real-World Museum Experience 

To help students apply what they’ve learned to the real world, many Museum Studies programs include practical parts like internships, fieldwork, or big final projects. These experiences let students use their new skills in real-life settings, which gives them valuable insights into how museums work, what problems they face, and how to do things best.

In conclusion, Museum Studies programs give students a well-rounded understanding of the field, and the practical experiences and skills they gain prepare them for a variety of jobs within museums. The mix of learning and doing is a unique feature of Museum Studies, and it’s designed to produce graduates who can make a real contribution to the world of museums.

Career Opportunities with a Museum Studies Degree

A Museum Studies degree can lead to many exciting jobs in museums, heritage groups, cultural organizations, and more. The many jobs available reflect the diverse nature of Museum Studies and the wide range of skills you can learn in these programs.

Jobs in Museums

Curators: Curators are in charge of getting, managing, and showing collections in museums. They also study objects and artifacts, explain their history and cultural importance, and create exhibits that are interesting and educational for visitors. Many curators focus on a certain type of collection, like art, history, natural history, or anthropology.

Museum Educators: Museum educators create and carry out educational programs for different groups, like school groups, families, and adults. They plan tours, workshops, lectures, and interactive activities that help visitors connect with and learn from museum exhibits.

Exhibition Designers: Exhibition designers make interesting physical and online displays that show off museum collections effectively. This job requires a mix of artistic, technical, and interpretive skills, as designers need to create exhibits that are visually appealing, easy to use, and informative.

Archivists: Archivists look after and organize historical documents, photographs, maps, and other archival materials. They also make these materials available to researchers and the public.

Collection Managers: Collection managers look after and organize museum collections. They do tasks like cataloging objects, organizing conservation efforts, managing storage spaces, and keeping up collection databases.

Jobs in Other Fields

Museum Studies graduates can also find jobs in other cultural and heritage groups, such as:

Cultural Heritage Organizations: These groups work to look after and promote cultural heritage, and offer jobs like heritage interpreters, cultural preservation specialists, and program coordinators.

Auction Houses: Graduates with a focus in art history or a similar field can find jobs in auction houses, where they assess, price, and sell artworks and other valuable items.

Archives: Museums Studies graduates can work in archives, managing and giving access to historical documents and records.

Digital Archiving Companies and Cultural Consultancy Firms: There are also new opportunities in digital archiving, where Museum Studies graduates can help digitize and organize collections, making them available online. Cultural consultancy firms offer opportunities to advise on the cultural parts of projects, like planning exhibits, designing exhibits, and getting audiences involved.

How much you can earn and how much these jobs can grow can depend on many things, like the specific job, the size and type of the employer, where the job is, and your level of education and experience.

Usually, higher-level jobs like curators and museum managers pay more, and jobs in bigger groups or city areas often come with higher salaries.

To show the wide range of possibilities, think about successful museum professionals. Some work in traditional museum jobs, curating collections and designing exhibits that attract and educate thousands of visitors each year.

Others use their Museum Studies degree in new ways, like developing digital archives, advising on cultural projects, or leading cultural preservation efforts.

A Museum Studies degree opens up a wide range of jobs, each offering unique ways to connect with and contribute to the preservation, explanation, and communication of our cultural and natural heritage.

Whether you’re interested in the traditional museum environment or the wider field of cultural heritage, this degree can give you the knowledge and skills needed to succeed.

Benefits and Challenges of a Museum Studies Degree

Choosing to pursue a Museum Studies degree comes with an array of benefits, though it also presents its own unique set of challenges. Understanding both aspects can help prospective students make informed decisions about their educational journey and career path in this dynamic field.

Benefits of a Museum Studies Degree

Passion-Driven Field: One of the most appealing aspects of Museum Studies is that it’s often a passion-driven field. Those who gravitate towards this discipline typically have a deep appreciation for history, art, culture, or science, and a desire to share that passion with others. Earning a Museum Studies degree allows individuals to transform their interests into a rewarding career where they can contribute to the preservation and dissemination of knowledge.

Specialized Knowledge and Skills: A Museum Studies degree provides a comprehensive understanding of the varied aspects of museum work. The curriculum is designed to impart both theoretical knowledge and practical skills, preparing graduates for the multidisciplinary nature of museum professions. Whether it’s curating an exhibition, managing a collection, developing an educational program, or leading a museum, this degree equips students with the necessary expertise.

Career Advancement: For those seeking to advance in the museum field, earning a degree in Museum Studies, especially at the Master’s or PhD level, can open doors to higher-level positions. It signals to potential employers a serious commitment to the profession and a high level of knowledge and competency in museum practices.

Challenges of a Museum Studies Degree

Competitive Job Market: Despite the various career opportunities, the museum field can be competitive. Positions, particularly those at the higher level like curatorial or director roles, can be limited and often attract a large number of applicants. This competition requires graduates to not only excel academically but also gain practical experience, networking skills, and a strong portfolio of work.

Need for Continuous Professional Development: As in many fields, the museum sector is constantly evolving with new practices, technologies, and societal expectations. For instance, the rise of digital technologies has transformed many aspects of museum work, from collection management to visitor engagement. To stay relevant, professionals must continually update their skills and knowledge, which may involve additional training, workshops, conferences, or even further formal education.

Financial Considerations: Pursuing a Museum Studies degree, like any higher education program, can also involve significant financial investment. Additionally, salaries in the museum field, especially in entry-level positions, can be modest compared to some other sectors. It’s important for prospective students to consider the return on investment and their personal financial circumstances when deciding to pursue this path.

A Museum Studies degree offers numerous benefits, from turning a passion into a career to acquiring specialized skills and advancing professionally. However, it also presents challenges such as a competitive job market, the need for continual professional development, and financial considerations. Prospective students must weigh these factors carefully to determine if this path aligns with their career goals and personal circumstances. With the right preparation and commitment, a Museum Studies degree can lead to a rewarding career contributing to the preservation and communication of cultural and natural heritage.

Final Thoughts on a Museum Studies Degree

A Museum Studies degree offers more than an education—it presents a unique journey into an interdisciplinary field that interweaves history, culture, art, science, and education. For those captivated by the allure of these elements, and driven by the desire to conserve, interpret, and share our shared cultural and natural heritage, a career in the museum sector can be exceptionally fulfilling and rewarding.

Through the course of this degree, students not only gain profound academic knowledge but also develop a wide array of practical skills. They learn to curate exhibitions, manage collections, design educational programs, and navigate the evolving landscape of digital museum practices. Moreover, the degree opens doors to a spectrum of career opportunities in museums, heritage organizations, cultural agencies, auction houses, and more, allowing graduates to find a niche that resonates with their personal interests and career aspirations.

However, choosing this academic and career path also involves serious considerations. Prospective students must contemplate the time, financial commitment, and academic rigor involved in pursuing a Museum Studies degree. Additionally, they must prepare for a competitive job market, and the need for continual professional growth in an ever-evolving field.

Given the diverse range of possibilities and challenges, it’s essential for potential students to conduct extensive research and gain a comprehensive understanding of what a Museum Studies degree entails. Reaching out to educational institutions that offer Museum Studies programs, conversing with professionals in the field, attending museum and heritage sector events, and even volunteering or interning at museums can provide invaluable insights.

Ultimately, a Museum Studies degree offers an engaging path for those who are passionate about the pivotal role museums play in society. For those individuals, the journey through Museum Studies can lead to a rewarding career that truly makes a difference in preserving and promoting our collective understanding of the world in which we live.

MuseumNext  offer online learning for museum professionals striving for engaging, relevant and flexible professional growth content. Find out about our upcoming events  here.

About the author – Rebecca Carlsson

Rebecca Carlsson is a journalist writing extensively about the arts. She has a passion for modern art and when she’s not writing about museums, she can be found spending her weekends in them.

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Case studies

Through commissioned projects, Happy Museum have supported museums to test out the Happy Museum Principles .  The Case Studies below distill learning from a range of these projects.  Whether it is prescribing happiness , putting making at the heart of the museum, experimenting with the role of play , building social capital or engaging with vulnerable communities – they each provide a fascinating picture of the Principles in practice.

You can also search for relevant case studies through our Story of Change framework which identifies themes such as sharing a wellbeing vision ,  working across hierarchies and teams , using the museum’s unique resources and considering the social and financial benefits of being green .

All Case Studies

• Thematic Case Study – Engaging emotions to promote wellbeing and build resilience This case study looks at how deliberately seeking to engage emotions can help to promote wellbeing in audiences and staff, and also build resilience in organisations.
• Thematic Case Study – Empowering staff, building external relationships This case study is about how encouraging a culture of ‘active citizenship’ – in staff, volunteers and others – and seeking mutually beneficial relationships can lead to change, increased wellbeing ...
• Thematic Case Study – Smart use of resources, building resilience and stewardship of the future This case study is about how museum and galleries used Happy Museum thinking to have a new perspective on the resources available to them. This was not just about taking ...
• Thematic Case Study – Planning, developing and measuring what matters This case study looks at how different museums and galleries have made use of Happy Museum tools and approaches to evaluation. With evaluation built in from the start, the organisations ...
• Case Study – Gwynedd Museum, audience engagement through technology and nudging This case study looks at how a partnership between a research institute and a museum led to the development of a software app that allows visitors to ‘tag’ objects and ...
• Case Study – Museum of East Anglian Life, building social capital and promoting wellbeing. This case study looks at how the Museum of East Anglian life reimagined itself as a social enterprise and used appropriate evaluation tools to demonstrate the value of its work. ...
• Case Study – the Story Museum, wellbeing and sustainability from the start This case study is about how The Story Museum team put wellbeing and sustainability at the heart of its ethos and vision for the museum as it prepared to open ...
• Case Study – Reading Museum, engaging with vulnerable communities. This case study is about how Reading Museum used a community history project to pilot a new approach to working closely and engaging with communities. The project changed perceptions about ...
• Case Study – Manchester Museum, developing skills to support child-led play This case study is about how, through two projects, Manchester Museum aimed to embed playfulness. The first project trained the museum’s visitor team to develop their understanding of play and ...
• Case Study – The Lightbox, Woking, community engagement and co-creation. This case study is about how members of the community with mental health issues curated an exhibition called ‘Landscapes of the Mind’ – and helped The Lightbox to embed a ...
• Case Study – IWM North, new tools new ways of working. This case study is about how IWM North used the ‘story of change’ tool to develop overall vision. Related to this, the museum tested different approaches to visitor object handling ...
• Case Study – Godalming Museum, co-creating a new gallery with local people. This case study from Godalming Museum is about how deciding on a community engagement approach to developing a new exhibit rather than defining the exhibit at the outset led to ...
• Case Study – Derby Museums, participation, making and well-being This case study is about how Derby Museums put community participation and co-production at the heart of its project to refurbish and re-open The Silk Mill. Innovative forms of evaluation ...
• Case Study – The Cinema Museum, growing partnerships for wellbeing. This case study is about how The Cinema Museum used a small project focused on community wellbeing to reimagine itself as a provider of wellbeing programmes to local residents, service ...
• Case Study – Ceredigion Museum, partnership and social enterprise This case study from Ceredigion Museum is about how a project developing craft wares with local young people led to a range of wider benefits – important partnerships for the ...

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17 Museum Studies

Erica L. Tucker, Department of Sociology, Stonehill College

• Published: 04 August 2014
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This chapter describes and discusses the major research methods used to study museums. These include gallery analyses and interviews with museum visitors, professionals, and stakeholders, as well as ethnographic fieldwork at museums. Drawing from a range of case studies conducted by museum practitioners, anthropologists, historians, and other museum studies scholars at a variety of museums, the author explores how these qualitative methods can be adapted to the study of exhibits, programs, and museums as knowledge-generating institutions. Approaches to research design, data analyses, and writing up are also examined.

The museum is teaching—expressly, as part of an education program and an articulated agenda, but also subtly, almost unconsciously—a system of highly political values expressed not only in the style of presentation but in myriad facets of its operation. – Susan Vogel (1991 , p. 200)

Why Study Museums?

Museums are a venue in which the construction of knowledge and its dissemination to the public is made visible and accessible. The constructed nature of exhibits allows for a window into social attitudes toward the objects, peoples, events, and places on display, as well as how these understandings change over time. As such, museums offer opportunities to explore how tacit assumptions are made explicit and tangible through the process of exhibit design. Processes of knowledge creation are present in the choices curators and other museum personnel make about what to display and how to display it, as well as in the voices that are given authoritative status through signage, labels, reconstructions, and video footage ( Gurian, 1991 , p. 185; Moser, 2010 , pp. 26–27). Moreover, subtle cues such as lighting, sound effects, and music, as well as the juxtaposition of one exhibit to another and even the architectural style of the museum itself can shape visitors’ attitudes toward what they view ( Levy, 2008 ; Moser, 2010 , pp. 24–26).

Museums also offer opportunities to examine how people learn in informal settings, as well as why they might choose to do so. Recent research conducted by museum scholars explores how people understand and relate to the information on display during their visits and the factors that influence whether and how informal, voluntary learning resonates in their lives after their visit ends ( Falk & Dierking, 2000 ).

Museum studies has its roots in research on material culture. Contemporary journals devoted to museum studies publish articles that are driven by research in museum collections, as well as critical readings of exhibits. Anthropologists, historians, and art historians have long used museum collections as a resource with which to study the technologies of the past, the diffusion of technologies from one society to another, and changes in material culture over space and time. This approach is suited to answering questions about the people and societies that created the items museums collect and display. Scholars engaged in material culture research utilize methodologies that require an in-depth understanding of culture and history and how a society’s environment shapes its technology in terms of both materials at hand and the techniques used to create objects. This chapter focuses on a different kind of museum research: critical studies of exhibits, programming, and museum cultures. This type of research is best suited to questions about the role of museums in society, their relationships with various constituencies, how museums create knowledge, and what visitors take away from exhibitions. Such research requires ethnographic methods including content analysis of galleries, exhibition catalogs and brochures, museum websites, and curricular materials; interviews with museum professionals, visitors, and stakeholders; and participant observation at museums and the activities they sponsor. These methods can be deployed by scholars to study museums, but also by museum practitioners to evaluate their own work and determine if their exhibits and programs are meeting their goals and objectives.

Research Design

One can employ a variety of research methods to study the effectiveness of museum exhibits and programming and the knowledge-creating capacity of museums. The methods we choose are shaped first and foremost by the questions we seek to answer, but also by considerations such as the amount of time at hand, the availability of funding for long-term research and travel, and the desired length of the final project. Whether we conduct a content analysis of visual displays and signage, interviews with museum professionals or visitors, or participant observation in galleries or of museum programming, we must start with a few basic questions. As Stephanie Moser, archaeologist and museum studies scholar, points out in her piece “The Devil Is in the Detail,” we must keep in mind that within museums “critical components of displays complement and reinforce one another to create a system of representations” that shape visitors’ understandings of certain subjects ( Moser, 2010 , p. 23). Thus, it is necessary to learn about the educational and professional background of those involved in creating the exhibit and choosing the themes that are exhibited, as well as their goals in doing so (p. 24). What were the criteria they used for deciding what was or was not included in the display? It is important to note how and to what extent this type of information is acknowledged and incorporated into the exhibition itself. In some cases, the history of the collection itself, how it was acquired by the museum, and the conditions under which certain pieces were created can be equally important (p. 24; see, for example, Jacknis, 2008 ).

One must also consider who the museum perceives as its intended audience for an exhibit, what they are meant to learn as a result of their visit, and how such goals tie into the museum’s mission. For example, we might consider children the primary audience at children’s museums, but they are always accompanied by an adult, typically a parent. When I visited the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis with my son, I felt like I was an important part of the audience, too, because the majority of exhibits had two sets of labels. The first, written for children, were placed no more than three feet off the floor and, in some areas designated for toddlers, signage was even lower and featured questions or rhymes written in simple sentences. The second set of labels, clearly targeted to adults, were displayed at somewhere around five feet and provided information about how children learn or offered suggestions on how to engage with children through the displays. As a result, I not only had fun playing with my son but came away from my visits feeling that I had learned something about children’s learning. Not surprisingly, the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis emphasizes learning in its mission statement: “Our Mission: To create extraordinarily learning experiences across the arts, sciences, and humanities that have the power to transform the lives of children and families,” and they follow this with statements stressing that their goal is to “understand how children and families learn” and “to foster family learning and nurture interaction between children and their families” ( http://www.childrensmuseum.org/mission ). This particular museum emphasizes the social and familial aspects of learning.

It may seem obvious that parents are a large potential audience at museums designed for children, but few that I have visited actually address parents as a target audience through labels directed at them. The mission statement of the Boston Children’s Museum emphasizes the importance of learning through play, “Boston Children’s Museum engages children and families in joyful discovery experiences that instill an appreciation of our world, develop foundational skills, and spark a lifelong love of learning” ( http://www.bostonchildrensmuseum.org/about/mission-vision-values ). Statements that follow talk about children and families, but the overall emphasis is on the child, “Boston Children’s Museum’s vision is to be a welcoming, imaginative, child-centered learning environment that supports diverse families in nurturing their children’s creativity and curiosity” ( http://www.bostonchildrensmuseum.org/about/mission-vision-values .). This museum has a number of excellent exhibits that are engaging to visitors of a variety of ages, but during my visits with my son I did not see any labels that were directed specifically at parents. I had fun playing with my son at these exhibits and felt that he learned from our visits, but I did not feel as if the exhibits’ designers were attempting to speak to me as a parent.

It would be interesting to compare levels of parental engagement at children’s museums that emphasize learning as a family activity versus learning as play. Are there things that institutions do to foster or limit family interactions in exhibit spaces? Even in this short exercise, we see how a museum’s mission might inform practice, potentially resulting in different experiences for both children and their families.

Questions of curatorial motivations, selection, interpretation, and intended audience are the foundations on which all other inquiry is built. The remainder of this chapter is an exploration of some major approaches to research design in the field of museum studies. I discuss approaches to exhibit analysis, as well as the use of interviews and participant observation in museum-based research. Some of these might be answered before even setting foot in the museum itself by consulting a museum’s website for mission statements or other promotional materials to see how visitors’ expectations are being shaped by advertisements and other museum authored information.

Exhibit Analysis

Visual displays; reconstructions; labels and voice; the use of lighting, sound, and interactive elements; as well as the architecture of the museum itself and the juxtaposition of one exhibit in relation to others all convey tacit and overt messages about the items on display, the people who created them, and the cultures and epochs they represent. Design creates content ( Moser, 2010 , p. 23; Serrell, 2006 , p. 33). As a result, detailed description and analysis of the visual, written, and technological exhibit elements is typically the starting point for data collection in museum research. I recommend that scholars begin by drawing a map of the exhibit, making note of indicators given to visitors of the direction of the exhibit (or lack there of) and where objects and texts are displayed in relation to one another. The location of interactive elements of the display should be noted as well, with attention paid to issues of accessibility. For example, height may restrict their use to adult, ambulatory visitors, and the space around them may either limit use to one visitor at a time or encourage interaction and discussion. Mapping should be followed with a detailed outline of information conveyed through signage, labels, and charts, as well as by other sorts of visuals such as maps and photographs. The voice and font used in any sort of written aspect of the display can be powerful in shaping attitudes; as Elaine Gurian suggests, “labels may assume the role of teacher, coconspirator, colleague, preacher, gossip columnist” (1991, p. 185), in this way labels may encourage a specific type of audience interaction with the exhibit. Additionally, museum researchers should take note of the reading level of the language used, the definition of terms, descriptions of techniques used to create objects on display, and the location of all geographic locales on maps (p. 185). The font used in labels and signage can convey messages to viewers as well ( Moser, 2010 , p. 27). Similarly, James Clifford has suggested that we would do well to pay attention not simply to the content of photographs in displays, but to the ways in which they might indicate a historical approach, in contrast to an aesthetic one (1991, p. 222). He argues that the systematic use of black-and-white or sepia photographs gives the impression that what is on display is of the past, whereas color photography signals currency ( Clifford, 1991 ).

Many other factors can contribute to mood as well. Among these, sound is important. Whether we are considering the deliberate inclusion of background music and sound effects or unintentional sounds, such as creaking floorboards or the sound of audio or visitors from neighboring exhibits, sounds influence visitors’ experiences. Lighting can also be key in conveying a mood. Boutique lighting can be used to spotlight the uniqueness of objects in display cases, potentially inspiring wonder at the objects on display ( Moser, 2010 , p. 26). However, it can be difficult to discern the extent to which lighting—particularly low lighting—has been dictated by guidelines and agreements regarding the number of lumens per day to which objects can be exposed versus aesthetic considerations. One thing to keep in mind is that unless such considerations are spelled out for them, few visitors will interpret lighting in terms of curatorial decisions about the care of the specimens on display. One of the most memorable areas at the Indianapolis Zoo is a reptile room that is almost completely dark save for the small rectangular glass cases lit from within where snakes are displayed among artistically arranged stones, water bowls, and perches that contrast to their coloration. The boutique lighting and the small cases created an impression that I was seeing rare, one of a kind objects like jewels, and I found myself reflecting on the snakes’ beauty rather than what their lives might be like in their natural habitats. Regardless of the motivations behind such choices, lighting will shape how visitors experience and react to an exhibit.

The case studies that follow are all based on exhibit analysis and illustrate the importance of the factors I have discussed to this point in shaping visitors’ interactions and understandings of a variety of exhibit displays. Some are classics of museum studies research that offer relevant insights even today; others are newer examples of museological inquiry. Although carried out in art museums, natural history, and regional and community museums, all the exhibits discussed here are focused on Native Americans or exhibits of non-Western art. Such exhibits specifically address other cultures or groups within our own society that have been marginalized and, in doing so, render explicit the knowledge-generating power of museums, offering glimpses of the implications of the messages they convey beyond the walls of the museum itself.

In “Other Cultures in Museum Perspective,” Ivan Karp shows how choices such as how objects are placed in relation to one another can serve to exoticize or assimilate the subjects of the exhibit by making them seem alien or familiar (1991, p. 375). Taking the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)’s “Primitivism in Twentieth Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern” as a case in point, Karp examined how curator William Rubin paired Western modern art created by Picasso, Man Ray, and others with the African art that served as its model or with pieces Rubin perceived as aesthetically similar (p. 376). All the works on display were exhibited with the minimalist labels typical of art museums. Karp suggests that this technique emphasizes the aesthetic value of the African pieces (by displaying them in the same way the museum would display Western art) and encourages visitors to appreciate it on those terms alone (pp. 376–377). However, he argues that the juxtaposition of the pieces, coupled with the lack of contextualizing information about the African pieces and the artists who created them, reduced the non-Western works to a resource to be mined by Western artists and that, in the process, differences in content, intentionality, sociocultural contexts of production, and history are lost in a comparison that ultimately assimilates the aesthetics of African artists into “a particular moment within his [William Rubin’s] own tradition” (p. 377). Karp uses “‘Primitivism’ in Twentieth Century Art” as an entrée to discuss exhibition techniques that assimilate difference (as does the MoMA exhibit) versus those that exoticize difference by contrasting it to something familiar and accentuating the dissimilarities so as to make them seem bizarre. Simply by placing some groups of people and their creations in history, science, or art museums and others in natural history museums, we assimilate some groups and exoticize others.

Native Americans are among those who, until relatively recently, were rarely seen in exhibits outside of natural history museums ( Karp, 1991 , p. 377). Scholarship on museum representations of Native Americans offers a powerful example of the effectiveness of gallery analysis in drawing out tacit understandings of cultural others conveyed through museum exhibitions. Several authors have written pieces analyzing and comparing representations of Native Americans in the same institutions over time ( Hill, 2000 ; Jacknis, 2008 ), whereas others have compared exhibits in major state-sponsored institutions to those in community-operated museums ( Clifford, 1991 ; see also Levy, 2008 , on the Saami). In these cases, gallery analyses were used as a starting point to discuss changing trends in popular representations of Native Americans and to explore the relationship between art and culture.

Drawing on gallery analyses supplemented by analyses of print and visual materials produced by the museums, Clifford compares four Northwest Coast museums: the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology, the Kwagiulth Museum and Cultural Centre in Quadra Island’s Cape Mudge Village, the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, and the U’mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay on Comorant Island. Although the museums exhibit similar objects, some present the objects as fine art, whereas others treat them as artifacts demonstrating cultural change, adaptation, oppression, and struggle. Clifford uses descriptions of each museum’s locale, architecture, and style of exhibition to examine fundamental characteristics of majority and tribal museums and to explore differences in their discourses on history, community, and ownership. He also explores the broader implications of exhibiting objects as art versus artifact.

For example, at the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology, Clifford notes that the printed guide’s first sentence explains that the objects are exhibited as fine art, emphasizing their visual quality (1991, p. 219). Thus, the labels are similar to those at an art museum, noting cultural group, place and date of creation, and type of object (e.g., contemporary carving) and giving a brief description that includes the name of the artist if known. Some labels contextualize the pieces by including small drawings of the works in their original settings, such as how posts or entryways were attached to homes (p. 219). Similarly, Clifford describes how boutique lighting is used in the museum’s “Masterpiece Gallery” to drive home the message that the pieces displayed there are works of art. Clifford describes how older artifacts are displayed in close proximity to contemporary work, conveying the message that “tribal works are part of an ongoing, dynamic tradition” rather than something salvaged from a vanishing culture (pp. 220–221). At the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology, there is no overarching historical narrative. Visitors can take a variety of paths through exhibit spaces, and the message of the permanent exhibit does not depend on taking one particular route. Furthermore, Clifford notes that the exhibit relies on drawings to provide contrast, rather than on historical or contemporary photographs. In this way, the museum emphasizes the aesthetic properties of each piece, communicating across cultures a sense of its quality and value (pp. 221).

In contrast, at the Royal British Columbia Museum, the focus is on adaptation, crisis, and conflict throughout the region rather than on the particular histories or traditions of a given tribe ( Clifford, 1991 , p. 218). Thus, the historical sequence in which the pieces are presented “suggests that the traditional objects on display were not necessarily made prior to white power but in relation and sometimes in defiance of it” (p. 218). To illustrate this point, he describes galleries devoted to cultural contact with missionaries that contrast Haida Shaman figures carved in the 1880–1890s with a Tlingit sculpture of a Christian priest to signal the decline of the shaman’s authority and the rise of new forces in the area (p. 216). Focusing on exhibits devoted to the smallpox epidemic of 1860s, missionary influence, and potlatch and its suppression, as well as a large reconstruction of a chief’s house, Clifford illustrates that change is discussed throughout the museum, giving a sense of the dynamism and adaptability of indigenous culture (pp. 217–218).

Similarly, history is also central to the story told with objects at the U’mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay. In this case, though, the story is not an overarching history of the region but specific to the Kwagiulth and the Great Potlatch ceremony of 1921 that led to the arrest of a number of chiefs and the confiscation of their potlatch regalia by Canadian authorities. Indeed, the collections of both the tribal museums studied by Clifford are comprised of repatriated potlatch gifts returned not to the family’s who owned them, but to tribal museums (1991, p. 230). Clifford relates how the U’mista Cultural Centre conveys the story of the potlatch , its suppression, the arrest of their leaders, and their struggle to regain the lost regalia by displaying the objects around the perimeter of a great hall in the same order that they were presented at the Great Potlatch of 1921 (pp. 237–238). Cards bearing text tell little about each individual piece or its use or significance beyond the Great Potlatch, focusing instead on the history of the event (p. 238).

Visitors stand in the center of a large room in the same area where guests at a potlatch would sit, although, as Clifford notes, the atmosphere and awe created by seeing the works by firelight is lost here. Clifford writes, “The display’s effect, on me at least, was of powerful storytelling, a practice implicating its audience.... I was not permitted simply to admire or comprehend the regalia. They embarrassed, saddened, inspired and angered me—responses that emerged in the evocative space between objects and texts” (1991, p. 240). Clifford’s piece is itself a compelling example of how museum studies in general and comparative gallery analysis in particular can serve as the basis for exploring a number of topics, among them the disconnects between dominant and oppositional discourses on the past and the classification and presentation of objects as art versus ethnographic artifact.

Similarly, Richard W. Hill Sr.’s “The Museum Indian Still Frozen in Time and Mind” compares Native American galleries at two Denver museums, the Denver Art Museum and the Denver Museum of Natural History (DMNH). Hill traces the origins of contemporary displays of Native American culture to nineteenth-century anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan’s attempts to create a taxonomy of Native Americans focused on the technological development of tools and containers ( Hill, 2000 , p. 42). Anyone who has ever visited a museum of natural history and wandered through displays of arrowheads, basketry, and mannequins in traditional attire has experienced the long-reaching legacy of this approach to presenting Native American culture as ethnologic artifact. In the 1970s, the Denver Museum of Art sought to challenge that mode of exhibiting by presenting objects from their Native American collections not as artifacts in glass cases but as fine art to be appreciated for its intrinsic aesthetic value (p. 43). Similarly, the Denver Museum of Natural History sought to break the mold of presenting Native American culture by environmental region (e.g., Eastern Woodlands, Great Lakes, Central Plains, Northern Plains, Southeast, Plateau, Northwest Coast, Prairie, Sub-Arctic and Far North), which all too often obscured a great deal of cultural and linguistic diversity in an effort to demonstrate common traits of the distinct nations living in a given region (p. 43). Together, these institutions challenged a mode of exhibiting Native Americans through a taxonomy of culture rooted in the nineteenth century, one that focused on adaptations to the environment and utilitarian aspects of material culture.

In 2000, Hill returned to these groundbreaking museums to see how their exhibits had changed since the late 1970s (2000, p. 43). Beginning with a walk through of the DMNH’s Indian Exhibitions, Hill notes that, on the surface, little had changed. A display of medicine masks of the Tuscarora had been repatriated under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and an explanation was placed near their former location in the exhibit (p. 44). This allowed visitors to see that the museum was responsive to concerns of Native peoples and that their sacred practices were a part of a living, ongoing tradition (p. 44).

The regional approach to displaying Native American culture was predominant at the DMNH, as were dioramas and other reconstructions, which Hill describes in detail. One that was particularly noteworthy was the Miccosuki diorama depicting a Miccosuki man in the clothing of his ancestors, paddling a dugout canoe through the Everglades ( Hill, 2000 , p. 44). Hill notes that because Miccosuki people in Florida still dress in the style of their ancestors, the diorama gives a somewhat misleading notion of timelessness (p. 44). To anchor visitors in the present, curators added wrappers from contemporary snack items to the grass by the river. Ultimately, Hill illustrates that, although beautiful and creative, the reconstructions at DMNH still represent Native Americans as timelessly tribal, ignoring important changes in their lives and their communities, as well as their responses to them (p. 44).

Like the DMNH, the Denver Art Museum’s Gallery for American Indian Art is organized by geographic region. However, in documenting the gallery’s design, Hill shows how curators have worked to display objects as fine art pieces with utilitarian functions that might reflect an individual’s cultural, spiritual, or personal needs ( Hill, 2000 , p. 58). For example Plains Indian parfleche bags are displayed on gray tripods in order to give a sense of how they were intended to be seen. Hill suggests that this allows viewers to “imagine what they might look like if the wind blew the fringe” (p. 59). According to Hill, the exhibit included text offering historical and cultural information, as well as descriptions of how the objects were used. In this way, pieces are treated as art, but visitors are given tools with which to place them into cultural and historical context. Unfortunately, Hill does not share the content of any of this signage with his readers. Texts convey more than just the “facts” or which facts were privileged over others in the selection process, and style and voice can influence how visitors perceive subjects ( Moser, 2010 , pp. 26–27). Without the actual text, however, all of these data on how museum professionals interpret and present knowledge to the visitor are lost. Nonetheless, Hill’s work is a useful example of gallery analysis. He demonstrates the lasting impact of nineteenth-century views of Native Americans and how these ideas continue to influence knowledge creation and dissemination in public venues. At the same time, Hill offers thoughtful and practical suggestions for how to move beyond stereotypes in a variety of museum contexts.

Ira Jacknis’s examination of changing exhibits about Ishi and the Yahi at the University of California Museum in San Francisco focuses on changing displays of the same collection over time at the same institution. Ishi, as Jacknis reminds us, was the last surviving member of the Yahi tribe, and he came to the museum after a life lived in hiding from white Californians who wiped out his community; he ultimately resided in the museum itself, appearing not infrequently as a living part of the exhibit (2008, p. 60). Alfred Kroeber, anthropologist and curator of the museum, viewed Ishi as the last Native American in California to have lived a traditional life free of the influence of cultural change, despite the fact that this was manifestly not the case (p. 63). The Yahi collection was comprised of artifacts acquired in three different ways: those looted by whites, those collected by museum employees from sites Ishi took them to, and those Ishi made himself while employed at the museum as a custodian and demonstrator of Yahi culture (p. 67). During Ishi’s life, the museum’s exhibitions were influenced by salvage ethnography of the Boasian school and thus, as Jacknis demonstrates, curators sought to repress signs of cultural change in favor of presenting visitors with “authentic” Yahi culture (p. 63). For example, photographs of Ishi wearing animal skins and furs were on display, although this is not representative of traditional Yahi attire, while other photographs of Ishi that suggest that he preferred to dress like those around him were not exhibited (pp. 70–73). Similarly, the way in which Ishi produced tools for display in exhibits was also obscured. Jacknis shows how, provided with new tools and materials as well as the museum’s entire collection for inspiration, Ishi produced pieces that were creative, experimental, and at times more artistic than utilitarian, yet these pieces were displayed as representative of traditional Yahi culture without reference to his creative process (pp. 67, 69).

Other curators used the same collection to tell different stories. In 1961, five decades after Ishi’s death, the Hearst Museum adapted Theodora Kroeber’s book Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America into an exhibit that reiterated Alfred Kroeber’s representation of Ishi as a “stone age Indian” untouched by time, although they added the theme of genocide ( Jacknis, 2008 , pp. 75–76). In 1990, Susan Berry retold the Ishi story in terms of cultural exploitation ( Jacknis, 2008 , pp. 80–81). Later, Steven Shackley focused on stone tool technology, comparing Ishi’s work to those of neighboring groups and highlighting both the features in common and Ishi’s own innovative techniques ( Jacknis, 2008 , p. 81). Most recently, Jacknis himself redid the exhibit, creating Ishi and the Invention of Yahi Culture, which ran from 1992 to 2001 and highlighted issues of adaptation and innovation, acknowledging the role of the museum and the Kroebers in the invention of Yahi tradition ( Jacknis, 2008 , pp. 81–82). By tracing shifts in the Hearst Museum’s exhibits about Ishi, we get a sense of how depictions of Native Americans have changed along with priorities and understandings within the field of anthropology. At the same time, we see from the museum professionals involved in the various displays an increasing openness to acknowledge the historical context of genocidal policy that propelled Ishi to the museum in the first place, as well as ever more sophisticated and nuanced approaches to exhibiting the collection and understanding how objects came to be collected and produced.

Finally, one of my favorite pieces that explores the constructed nature of exhibits is not a gallery analysis but an essay by Susan Vogel about a number of exhibits she designed to educate viewers about the implicit messages conveyed through visual displays. In “Always True to the Object in Our Fashion,” Vogel, a museum professional wrestling with audiences’ knowledge (or lack thereof) of Africa, describes specific strategies she developed through three different exhibits that address visitor expectations and pre/misconceptions (1991). In “The Art of Collecting African Art,” Vogel displayed objects that were the pride of the collector alongside works that were second-tier, altered, restored, or fake (p. 193). Labels written in a personal, informal, and opinionated style encouraged visitors to examine the pieces closely and form their own opinions before reading the label for Vogel’s view (p. 193.). For “Perspectives: Angles on African Art,” Vogel asked ten co-curators—some Africans, some from the United States—to choose a single piece and use it to discuss what African art has come to represent (pp. 193–194). Each piece was accompanied by a label authored and signed by each curator, as well as a checklist of information on the use and meaning of the pieces for their original African owners. Some curators talked about their pieces as central to national patrimony or personal heritage, others described them as objects in an art collection, part of art history, anthropological artifact, an influence on twentieth-century art, materials for artists to draw upon, or as expressions of living religious and political beliefs (p. 194). Finally, in “Art/artifact,” Vogel created an exhibition about perception and the museum experience that focused on how Westerners have classified and displayed African objects (p. 195). She did so by drawing on different installation styles, such as that of an art gallery with boutique lighting or an ethnographic museum with objects displayed in glass cases with a great deal of text.

In each of these exhibits, Vogel employed strategies that brought the curator’s role in interpreting work to the fore of visitor’s experience, demonstrating how a curator’s own understandings of the works he or she displays and the people who produce them may “rest on unquestioned and unexamined cultural—and other—assumptions” that are worthy of visitor’s consideration (1991, p. 191). She points out that although politically savvy visitors may focus on questions of provenance, funding, and profits, there are subtler messages being conveyed to visitors by what the museum collects and displays and how it does so, as well as whom it chooses to address in its programming and exhibits (pp. 198, 200). All these details, she reminds us, will tell the audience how to think about the peoples and places that are the focus of exhibits long after the visitor leaves the museum.

Open-ended, informant-directed interviews with museum practitioners aid the researcher in discerning the tacit assumptions, goals, and factors that shape and constrain the choices that museum practitioners make in creating exhibitions. Moreover, interviews with those involved in researching, designing, and creating exhibits can give a sense of how an exhibit fits into the overall mission of the museum and the institution’s long-term goals. Additionally, on a practical level, interviews allow us to learn about things that are not ongoing during the time of our research.

Although it is possible to find practitioner-authored articles about their own work or blogs that aid the researcher in achieving the same ends, the synergy created in the interview process sometimes leads to the discovery of aspects of the creation process that are entirely unexpected and that might not otherwise be discussed. Interviewing guides, docents, interpreters, or volunteers who interact with the public also has its benefits. First, it can help one gain a sense of how visitors engage with the displays, interactive elements, and public programming. Second, it can help researchers discern to what extent the goals of exhibition creators are being successfully conveyed to visitors or if something is being lost in translation. Such research can help pinpoint disconnects between curatorial intentions and outcomes and help generate ideas about how to address them. They can also be revealing of institutional culture.

An example of interview-based research is Daniel Sherman’s interview with curator Ilona Katzew about Inventing Race: Casta Painting and Eighteenth-Century Mexico at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) from April 4–August 8, 2003. The interview is presented in transcript form as part of a dossier that included exhibition publications and press releases, as well as reviews of the exhibit that appeared in two newspapers ( Katzew & Sherman, 2008 ). We learn from the Casta Exhibition Brochure that casta paintings are family portraits that overtly illustrate the results of the intermingling of the races in colonial Spanish America through family portraits (pp. 292–293). Most were conceived as sets of 16 scenes painted on a single canvas or as separate surfaces arranged hierarchically, beginning with figures of Spaniards, perceived as racially “pure” (p. 293). Each additional scene depicted a family group with parents of different races and one or two of their children engaged in activities that, along with their attire, indicate their social status (p. 293). Each family portrait is accompanied by inscriptions identifying the racial mixtures of those depicted in each scene (p. 293).

During the course of the interview, Daniel J. Sherman asks Ilona Katzew a range of questions beginning with her background studying art history at New York University, how she became interested in casta paintings, and the genesis of the exhibit. He also asks a number of questions about exhibition style, the intended path of visitors through the exhibition, and the positioning of explanatory charts and labels. In the discussion that ensues, it becomes clear that Katzew hoped that visitors’ initial puzzlement about the messages of the paintings would arouse their curiosity. To this end, she designed the exhibit so that visitors’ paths would take them to a central piece multiple times in their trajectory through the exhibit, giving them the opportunity to view it anew with the benefit of the information they gleaned throughout the exhibit as a whole ( Katzew & Sherman, 2008 , p. 29). A question on the difference in the Spanish and English titles for the show led to a lively discussion of the relationship between casta painting and the development of the notion of race and hybridity in Mexico and how these concepts differ throughout time and between the cultures of Mexico and the United States (pp. 312–319). This part of the piece alone would be of interest to scholars on race, but also to those seeking to understand how notions of race are historicized, critiqued, and conveyed through art and art history to museum visitors. At Sherman’s prompting, Katzew also discusses the challenges raised by creating an exhibit on the construction of race in Los Angeles, a city with its own racial hierarchy and history of race-related violence (p. 315). Among other things, in her response, Katzew describes concerns voiced by LACMA’s education department who were “in all honesty quite alarmed, thinking that viewers would come out... —especially viewers of either mixed backgrounds or African Americans—with a lower sense of self, thinking that only whites are placed at the top, and that because they’re mixed they’re placed at the bottom of the social hierarchy” (p. 316). Apparently, such fears motivated members of the education department to suggest censoring the tours so that the most violent, racist images would be excluded—something Katzew resisted and dealt with by offering training programs on the exhibit to other museum personnel (pp. 316–317). This conversation in particular is worthwhile both for scholars of museum studies and practitioners involved in curating exhibits on violence or oppression.

One of the exchanges in this piece that I found the most interesting was a story Daniel J. Sherman shared about his visit to the exhibit in which a small group of visitors read aloud a label on the historical practice of “blood-mending,” which the exhibit explained was not an option for people of African descent ( Katzew & Sherman, 2008 , p. 322). One member of the group commented “see, if you have any black blood you are black,” a remark that both authors interpreted as a sign that the visitor accepted this historical explanation, as if it were an authoritative statement on the biology of race (p. 322). Katzew offered another example of a family she witnessed who—much to her dismay—used the paintings as a guide to see where they fit into the racial scale (p. 322). That the exhibit could serve as a tool to reproduce the categories the curator sought to deconstruct is a powerful example of how exhibits shape understandings of subjects, albeit sometimes in unexpected and unintended ways. It’s also a warning that interviews and gallery analyses might not be enough for scholars to learn how exhibits are interpreted and understood by visitors.

In their book Learning from Museums, authors John Falk and Lynn Dierking describe research undertaken at the National Museum of Natural History in which interviews played a crucial role (2000, pp. 3–8). Researchers first gained permission to shadow visitors during their trip to the museum and then conducted interviews with them before they left the museum and again five months later. The results were revealing. The authors present the case of two women in their late 20s, who both lived in Chicago and worked as editors of children’s textbooks, one focusing on science texts, the other on art (p. 3). They describe how the women visited several different parts of the museum during their ninety-minute visit but how they spent, on average, about fifteen minutes in each section (p. 4). Before their departure, researchers interviewed the women about their visit, why they came, what they discovered that was new to them, what they found the most interesting, and the like. The researchers were somewhat discouraged by the initial interview, noting that an optimist might conclude that the first woman came away with a greater appreciation of the variety and adaptability of spiders and an enriched understanding of the size and diversity of dinosaurs, but a pessimist might feel as if they hadn’t learned much at all (p. 4). However, five months later, when researchers contacted the women for a follow-up interview, the results were far more encouraging. The interviewer asked the first woman, who edits science textbooks, if she had discussed her visit with others, if she had thought about it, or if other events in the months since her visit had brought the museum to mind (p. 5). What they learned was very revealing. The woman spoke with greater enthusiasm about her visit five months later than she had on the day of her trip. Not only did she share her enthusiasm about the exhibits she enjoyed the most with members of her family upon her return, but, in the intervening months, she mentioned several events that had caused her to think about other exhibits she had seen at which she had spent less time and that she had not discussed at all in her initial interview (p. 5). The second woman remained the less enthusiastic of the two in the second interview. However, in the second interview, she spoke about how an exhibit about amphibians she’d seen on her trip had aided her in imaging the environments described in a novel she was reading (p. 6). Both women’s visits had resonated with them five months later. Additionally, in the follow-up interview, the second woman mentioned that she and her friend had also visited the National Gallery and that it was this museum visit that she had talked and thought about more in the intervening months (which isn’t surprising given her interest in art) (p. 6). Clearly, this is compelling research that demonstrates the power of exhibits to capture our imagination well beyond the parameters of any one visit, while demonstrating the need for researchers to follow-up on-site interviews with visitors weeks, even months later.

A final example worth considering is curator Heather Igloliorte’s discussion about the use of oral history interviews in an exhibit entitled “We Were So Far Away”: The Inuit Experience of Residential Schools. Although the article is not itself based on interviews, it offers insight into how Igloliorte used oral history interviews to create an exhibit with the dual mission of healing survivors of residential schools and educating the wider public about the oppression and abuse suffered by Inuit children in these institutions. As she reports, the oral histories collected from eight survivors from the four Inuit geographic territories of Canada became the centerpieces of a touring exhibit designed for a hierarchy of audiences, including residential school survivors, Inuit communities across the Arctic and Subarctic, and the wider Canadian public ( Igloliorte, 2011 , p. 23). Created to “supplement, assist, and encourage the many healing initiatives that are already being undertaken in communities across the Canadian North,” the author describes the strategies she developed in creating an exhibit that would care and protect survivors while conveying their stories to audiences around the country with widely varying knowledge of and experiences with Inuit residential schools. Particularly daunting was the task of how to represent survivor’s testimonies without causing distress to visitors, many of whom were survivors themselves or who had family members who were (p. 31). To remind visitors that the narratives were part of lived experience, each section of the exhibit displayed a banner bearing a large close-up portrait of a survivor’s face and a particular theme, such as language loss or the impact of assimilation that he or she emphasized during the interview (p. 33). Labels displaying excerpts from the interviews were displayed alongside personal photographs and items that the survivor chose as significant to her or his experience in the residential schools for the exhibit (p. 33). The complete interview transcripts were available in the exhibition catalog and a DVD recording of the interviews played in the background (p. 33). Taking a protective stance toward visitors, Igloliorte arranged for health care teams from Health Canada to be present at all exhibition openings in Northern Canada and provided Health Canada postcards with regional and national numbers for confidential and free counseling to visitors in areas of the exhibit where other resource materials were available (pp. 35–36). Igloliorte’s piece gives us a lens into how curators conduct and use life history interviews in their exhibit design and demonstrates the potential for museums to heal even as they educate.

Participant Observation and Ethnographic Fieldwork

Taking an ethnographic approach allows one to observe how the messages conveyed by exhibits are shaped from the moment of inception through various levels of development by the social forces that comprise a given museum’s culture. Such an approach may be best suited to a museum as a whole rather than to a single exhibit and makes for a longer finished project. Conducting fieldwork in the exhibit space at related museum events or educational outreach and with a variety of museum personnel and visitors yields an in-depth and nuanced understanding of the forces that shape knowledge production and its dissemination in and through museums. It is an approach that makes for persuasive results and fascinating reading, but there are relatively few studies that focus on a single museum in this way. Among these are Edward T. Linenthal’s Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America’s Holocaust Museum (2001) and Richard Handler and Eric Gable’s The New History in an Old Museum: Creating the Past at Colonial Williamsburg (1997) . The former traces the work, much of it political, that went into creating and funding the museum, finding a site, defining its mission, and assembling its permanent collection. However, it is not about the workings of the museum itself, and it is the product of historical rather than ethnographic research. Handler and Gable’s landmark monograph is perhaps the most comprehensive example to date of ethnographic fieldwork conducted at a museum. Working from the premise that, “most research on museums has proceeded by ignoring much of what happens in them,” the authors treated Colonial Williamsburg as a complete social world “where people of differing backgrounds continuously and routinely interact to produce, exchange, and consume messages” ( Handler & Gable, 1997 , p. 9). Thus, they set about examining the culture through which employees of all types at Colonial Williamsburg—museum, business administration, service, and support—along with museum visitors created messages about the past that were conveyed to the public.

Handler and Gable’s study explored the meanings of the past and examined who has the power to assign value to cultural and historical productions (1997, p. 8). Focusing on Colonial Williamsburg historians’ attempts to introduce a social history that consciously examined racial and class inequalities, their primary research question was why historical representations at the site changed or failed to change in the ways that the researchers intended. During the course of their fieldwork, Handler and Gable undertook three broad areas of inquiry. First, they were concerned with the institution’s representations of groups of people perceived to be different (p. 11). Among other things, this led them to focus on educational programming, the training of historical interpreters who interact most directly with the public, and how the museum dealt with slavery and African-American history. Second, they explored the ideologies and interests that informed and reinforced these representations. This led them to examine the mission of the institution, the various stakeholders the museum serves, the role of various types of museum workers in making choices about museum content, and to consider who benefits from the visions of difference on display at the museum (p. 11). Finally, Handler and Gable concentrated on the construction of audience through advertisements and programming, as well as on audience responses to the messages conveyed (p. 11). In the final product, Handler and Gable narrowed the scope of their project by focusing on five aspects of Colonial Williamsburg, including the museum’s educational programs, employees who worked with artifacts and objects (both those in research and those on the business side who developed and marketed products), the hotel and restaurant workers’ union that went on strike during the course of their research, and corporate culture (pp. 22–23). Finally, Anna Lawson, a graduate student at that time, researched and presented work on the Department of African American Interpretation and Presentation, for the most part contained in her as yet unpublished dissertation (1997, pp. 22–23, see also Gable, Handler & Lawson, 1992 ).

The approach taken by Handler and Gable will be familiar to anyone who has studied cultural anthropology: in short, they immersed themselves in the life of the museum, participating to the extent that those in power at the museum allowed them to in the everyday operations of the museum and its corporate side. Handler and Gable, along with Anne Lawson, interviewed more than 200 people employed in various aspects of the museum, including historians, curators, wait staff, housekeeping staff, janitors, gardeners, security, bus drivers, construction workers, IT workers, marketers, publicists, and the like ( Handler & Gable, 1997 , pp. 14–15, 21). Among these, twenty-five were key informants with whom the researchers had more than a casual relationship (p. 21). Additionally, they interviewed more than fifty visitors to the museum. These interviews lasted from less than an hour to seven hours in length (p. 21). The team observed and recorded tours of every building open to visitors during the time of their research and attended and documented special programs including plays, lectures, and backstage demonstrations that occurred regularly during their fieldwork (p. 14). They also conducted extensive work in Colonial Williamsburg archives to get a sense of how the museum and institutional culture had changed over time.

To give readers an example of how one might apply ethnographic research methods to a museum, I suggest we take a closer look at how Handler and Gable approached the educational mission of the museum. Because Colonial Williamsburg relies in part on costumed, first-person interpreters to convey much of its message, the authors began by attending a three-week training session designed and implemented by curators, historians, and educators at Colonial Williamsburg for new historical interpreters ( Handler & Gable, 1997 , pp. 11, 80–81). They took copious fieldnotes on these sessions, paying attention to the narratives, artifacts, and reconstructions that new hires were encouraged to utilize in conveying these themes to visitors and the historical documentation that underpinned these tools (p. 80). At these sessions, senior staff also described the challenges various artifacts and reconstructions posed to effective interpretation and gave an overview of typical visitors’ questions (p. 80).

Handler and Gable followed their participant observation of the training sessions with interviews with the historians who created the training programs and chose the themes the institution sought to convey to visitors ( Handler & Gable, 1997 , p. 12). Through these interviews, as well as through content analysis of works published by historians and other scholars employed at Colonial Williamsburg, Handler and Gable came to understand that those involved in research at the museum sought to convey the notion that history is constructed, shaped by ideology, and more than just the accumulation of facts about the past. The historians wanted to reshape the history presented at Williamsburg by presenting the past not as a storehouse for moral precepts transferable to the present day, but as a laboratory for critically examining social relationships (p. 67). The authors also used archival data and interviews with past employees to compare contemporary training techniques and interpreter approaches to those of the past and to get a sense of how the museum’s messages had changed over time (p. 67). Later, the team joined visitors and interpreters on tours, recording them for later transcription and coding. This allowed the authors to compare the stories that Colonial Williamsburg historians identified in interviews as central to the museum’s message to those upper level staff used in training sessions and, ultimately, to those historical interpreters delivered to visitors. In this way, Handler and Gable were able to examine how messages changed as they moved through development to visitors. It also allowed them to tease out the social factors that contributed to the transformations they witnessed. Through participant observation on tours and interviews with the historical interpreters, Handler and Gable found that the historical interpreters, who were responsible for the direct transmission of messages to visitors, saw history very differently than the historians at Colonial Williamsburg. The interpreters saw history as a puzzle to be reconstructed with continuing new discoveries (p. 70). Most transmitted to visitors the view that, as new information becomes available, our understanding of the past thus becomes fuller, richer, and more accurate, a view of history that is mimetic rather than constructive (p. 70). In this way, Handler and Gable demonstrated that the constructivist view of history embraced by scholars and curators at Colonial Williamsburg, an approach that was evident in their interviews as well as in written works they published, was severely undermined in practice by what Handler and Gable describe as a “just the facts” approach taken by historical interpreters (p. 78).

What was the origin of this disconnect? In their participant observation at training sessions, Handler and Gable found at least a partial explanation for why this was the case: in training sessions, new interpreters received prepackaged primary and secondary sources without distinction or discussion of the process of selection and interpretation that went into their creation ( Handler & Gable, 1997 , p. 83). In short, these materials, themselves a product of selection and interpretation, were presented to them as objective facts (p. 83). Moreover, trainees were encouraged to use these materials to discover historical significance and taught that this is how curators and historians conduct their research. To wit, the authors offer the following example:

In 1990, the outbuildings at the Wythe House were furnished to tell a particular story about slavery chosen by the foundation’s historians.... During a training session for the Wythe House, trainees were told to investigate the slave quarters, which they explored for about fifteen minutes. On reconvening, they were asked to figure out who lived in each room and what their lives were like. In response to leading questions from the trainers, these trainees “discovered” historical truth by induction from the artifacts. But they were never reminded that the rooms had been set up by historians and curators to tell precisely the story they had discovered. In other words, in this training session deduction was masked as induction, as trainees mimicked professional scholars and thereby learned that such experts arrive at the stories they tell by a objective process of induction from the facts at hand. ( Handler & Gable, 1997 , pp. 80–81)

This understanding of historical research and why history changes, along with the desire to ward off questions about anachronisms from visitors, led to what Handler and Gable called a “just the facts” approach to historical interpretation ( Handler & Gable, 1997 , pp. 81–83). Rather than focusing on social history and the themes identified by the research staff as central to the Colonial Williamsburg story, interpreters viewed their work as presenting objective facts to their audience (pp. 81–83). This led many interpreters to emphasize changes in the minutia of everyday life, point out inaccuracies of the past to visitors, and then explain how these errors were rectified with new data to make the site more authentic. For instance, some interpreters made a point of telling visitors that scholars used to believe that “sweetbread” referred to the brain of an animal, but historical research had revealed that instead these are glands (p. 76). Clearly, while such comments may render historical interpretation more visible they hardly make it seem relevant to the present and so are unlikely to alter visitors’ understandings of how the inequalities of the past shape contemporary social relationships. As Handler and Gable note, “This emphasis on recreating the past ‘as it really was’ for visitors through the minute details of material life overwhelms critical social history as well as the notion that history itself is a construct” (p. 222). Moreover, Handler and Gable conclude that, “Mimetic realism, the reigning historiographical philosophy at Colonial Williamsburg, destroys history” in that it renders the interpretive work of museums invisible. In doing so, “mimetic realism destroys history’s utility as a tool for social criticism by limiting its ability to teach critical thinking about differences in social rules” (p. 224).

Another book that applies ethnographic fieldwork to the museum experience is Jackie Feldman’s Above the Death Pits, Beneath the Flag: Youth Voyages to Poland and the Performance of Israeli National Identity , which examines the construction of Israeli student tours of Poland’s Holocaust sites (2008). Feldman focused on excursions organized by the Israeli Ministry of Education, the largest and most influential organizers of such trips (p. 21). As part of his fieldwork Feldman enrolled in a course that prepared teachers to guide Israeli school groups in Poland; guided four tours to Poland over a three-year period himself; shadowed groups guided by others; and conducted interviews and follow-up interviews with students, teachers, and other guides who took part in the trips (pp. 21–24). He also persuaded some of the student participants to keep and share with him trip journals. Throughout his research, Feldman took fieldnotes and transcribed interviews, coding them for patterns and key themes that he then analyzed. Because the tours do little to encourage Israeli groups to interact with Poles, Feldman did not interview Polish museum professionals at the sites the tours visited. As a result, the book could be read as a sort of visitor response. However, as Feldman compellingly illustrates, the Israeli students’experiences were shaped less by the museums and memorial sites themselves than by the tours and, by extension, the State of Israel, which organizes, sponsors, and partially funds the trips.

Of particular interest to museum studies scholars is Feldman’s analyses of both the ways students are prepared for the trip in their schools prior to departure and how they are encouraged to process their experiences on their return. These passages demonstrate the influence of prior knowledge, experience, and framing to shape visitors’ experiences. Feldman’s analyses of the ceremonies that tour groups perform at Holocaust sites are also persuasive and offer us some insights into how we might study the ways visitors interact with museums and memorial sites.

One such example he offers is the ceremony at Block 27 at Auschwitz, which, although not required by the Ministry of Education, has become a standard part of most Israeli students’ tours ( Feldman, 2008 , p. 204). Most of the ceremonies that are part of the tour feature what Feldman describes as a strong state presence in that, typically, students raise the Israeli flag, read aloud poems with themes of sacrifice and victory, and sing the national anthem before leaving the site. This is not the pattern followed at the Block 27 ceremony. Instead, students gather on the ground floor of Block 27, a darkened exhibition area at Auschwitz I, to read the names of family and friends killed in the Holocaust, light candles, and say Kaddish (pp. 205–208). Feldman describes both the ceremony and the exhibit at Block 27 in detail, then considers why it works, why students are moved and why they find it so memorable weeks and months after their return (pp. 204–208). He begins with a consideration of the exhibition in Block 27, which is a darkened space lit only by memorial candles left by visitors and from a glass panel set into the floor through which visitors can see stone slabs, ashes of Holocaust victims, and a metal Star of David (p. 205). The only text in the room is “And the Lord spoke to Cain, the voice of your brother’s blood cries out to me from the earth,” which is mounted on the wall and spelled out in metal letters in Hebrew and Polish (p. 205). Students enter and sit on the floor around the illuminated panels, which he points out is akin to sitting around an open tomb or sitting shiva (p. 205). Thus, the experience is visually and bodily connected to the traditional rites of mourning in Judaism. Feldman suggests that the darkness and the manner in which the Block is constructed create a space where students can cry openly “away from the critical gaze of their peers,” while the reading of the names, lighting candles, and the singing of the song “Every Person Has a Name” reify the presence of individual death and personalize it (p. 206). Unlike other parts of the tour, the State of Israel has little presence in this particular ceremony. For example, rather than singing the national anthem, as is typical before leaving a site, the students simply return quietly to their buses at the conclusion of the ceremony (p. 206).

Drawing on his interviews with student participants and tour guides, Feldman demonstrates that it is this ritual that transforms the students from onlookers to an “extended family of mourners” (p. 208). Although his research does not include interviews with Auschwitz Museum personnel or other information that might give us insight into who designed the space, why it was arranged in this way, or how other groups of visitors interact with this space, it seems safe to assume that Block 27 was designed for reflection and mourning. What Feldman’s research gives us then, is an example of how the Israeli tour groups use the space to do just that and the things they do to make it meaningful to their own lives and experiences.

Analysis and Write-Up

Like the pieces from which I have drawn case studies, museum studies projects in the social sciences are typically written up as articles, chapters in edited volumes, and, occasionally, as monographs. Limitations on length are the determining factor in the extent to which various aspects of the methodology are covered in the final write-up. However, four key issues must be addressed in any methods section. The first of these is research purpose: what were the primary research questions, how did the researcher go about answering them, where and with whom, and why. This is the place to discuss why one has focused on a particular exhibit or institution and who one’s key informants were, if interviews or participant observation has been part of the research process. The second theme that must be addressed in any strong methodology section is methodological decision making; in other words, how did the research questions change as a result of new findings, and how were new questions developed in response to findings? Were new methods developed, or were previous ones adjusted to answer them? The third concern is to explain the arrangements one has made with museums and informants, whether employees or visitors, to ensure that one’s work is conducted in an ethical way. Finally, in a methods section, it is important to describe the procedures one used to analyze research.

Although any write-up of museum studies research will present an analysis of the data collected, fields within the social sciences differ considerably in the extent to which the procedures used for analysis are described in the final product. Authors with a background in cultural anthropology rarely formally discuss the process they go through to transform fieldnotes and interview transcripts into a final, publishable piece of work. Qualitative sociologists, in contrast, often devote pages to the topic, outlining the specific codes they used to discern the patterns they then describe and discuss in their results. Although the first approach can leave the novice who is seeking to understand the process mystified, the latter can rapidly begin to feel redundant, particularly to the reader who is more interested in the exhibit or museum than in the intricacies of the process the researcher went through to understand it. This does leave authors quite a bit of leeway in writing their methods sections, so I suggest taking one’s cue on this point from other pieces published in the journal to which one is submitting one’s work or from the editors of the volume.

Disciplinary differences in writing styles aside, the procedure for analysis is the same. Researchers take their fieldnotes collected in galleries, at museum events, in meetings, and the like and look for patterns. Following transcription, interviews are typically handled in a similar fashion. It is relatively rare for interviews to be presented in transcription form without analysis, although this is the case in the piece I discussed by Daniel Sherman and Ilona Katzew. More typical by far is for the researcher to conduct a number of interviews with museum workers or visitors and look for themes in the interview transcripts, then to select and present examples that illustrate pertinent points. This is the approach taken in the second piece I described by John Falk and Lynn Dierking, in their research with museum visitors. What specifically one looks for will depend on the questions one has posed, but, as patterns emerge, the point is to note them. There are a variety of ways one can do this, and many researchers facilitate the process with the use of software that helps them locate such passages quickly and extract and organize them with memo notes as to how they might contribute to the final write-up. These patterns and notes then become the basis of one’s final write-up.

To give an example from a project I am working on at a museum in Warsaw, while mapping the permanent exhibit, I noted that there was a large steel sculpture about 2 meters wide in the center of the museum. It is inscribed with the dates of every day of the sixty-three-day uprising, to which the museum is devoted, like so: 1 VIII, 2 VIII,..., and at the top with the symbol of the Polish Home Army, which is a P with a split bottom that forms a W, signifying the slogan “ Polska Walczaca ” or Fighting Poland. The structure is covered in what look like simulated bullet holes, and it rises from the first floor to transect the mezzanine and the third floor. During the course of my research, I noticed that visitors could cover various bullet holes to produce a variety of sounds including gunfire, bombs dropping, broadcasts from wartime underground radio stations, songs, and what sounded like prayers. I noted this, too, and wrote the following questions, “What would it be like to have lived through the uprising and to hear these sounds in a museum setting?” “Might ex-combatants and other survivors find this disturbing?” Later, following a tour of the museum with a representative of the historical research division, I noted, “G took time to point out the museum’s ‘heart,’ the big wall running through the middle that literally beats like a human heart—whose heart beat did they use for this, I wonder?” Because my tour had ended just as the museum was closing and the first floor was virtually empty, I noticed for the first time that the sculpture was emitting a pulse that provided a sort of undertone for the entire first floor of the exhibit space.

In subsequent interviews with other museum employees, I was frequently asked “Did you see the heart of the museum?” It took me a while to realize that when museum personnel spoke about “the heart of the museum,” they were not talking about its ethos, or ideology, or even of an exhibit that they saw as central to the museum’s message, but about the sculpture with a pulse. Over time, I came to realize that this “heart” is a point of pride for museum personnel and that they regard the piece as a monument. Indeed, on the latest version of the museum website, the structure is referred to as a monument, “a symbol of our memory and a tribute to the Warsaw Uprising and its participants” ( http://www.1944.pl/o_muzeum/ekspozycja/parter/5_monument/?q=Serca ). Interestingly, although the text refers to the structure as the “monument,” I found this part of the site with the search term serca (heart). Because this is an ongoing project, I code my interviews and fieldnotes for references to the “heart,” whether it’s employed to refer to the monument or used in reference to more abstract ideas about the museum’s mission and work. Eventually, when I write up my research, I will draw on these data about the heart to talk about the personnel’s conceptualizations of their own work at the museum.

Far from exhaustive, I offer the methods I have outlined and explored in the preceding pages as a starting point. Gallery analyses, interviews, and participant observation, used separately or in tandem with one another, are a solid base with which to start one’s study of an exhibition, program, or a museum as an institution. These methods might also be applied to areas of museum work that are not as yet well represented in the literature. For example, many museums offer classes that make use of their collections to visitors, and many more have kindergarten through twelfth-grade outreach programs or generate curricular materials that supplement a variety of subjects that are part of state teaching standards. The study of such formal educational programs and curricular materials offered by museums to visitors, schools, and homeschoolers would be a worthwhile project best accomplished through a combination of content analysis and interviews with museum educators, classroom teachers, and the students they serve, as well as through participant observation in the learning environment, whether that be field trips to museums or the use of museum-generated materials in the classroom.

One could approach a museum website as an online exhibit and apply the same methods of gallery analysis to examine how museums use technology and social media to connect with physical and virtual visitors. As with any content analysis, this is an approach that pairs well with interviews to arrive at a fuller understanding of how visitors understand museum-generated sites and social media and make use of them in their daily lives. Such an approach might help museums and those who study them understand ways that museums create communities.

My hope is that this chapter will spark more thinking about museums, the learning that takes place within them, and the knowledge they create and circulate, as well as the communities they serve and create. May it also generate new ideas about how to go about studying them.

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Strategic Innovative Marketing and Tourism pp 889–897 Cite as

Strategic Management and Art Museums: The Case Study of the Historical Museum of the University of Athens

• Evangelos Papoulias 4 &
• Theoklis-Petros Zounis 4  
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Strategic management is that set of managerial decisions and actions that determines the continuing and future performance of an organization. Especially, the strategic planning is determining the optimal future for an organization, and the changes required to achieve it. Museums as any other cultural institution generally conduct strategic plans for any or all of the following reasons (performance, funding, accreditation, staff motivation, expansion, etc.). There are some key parts (organization analysis, formulated strategy, developed goals, developed objectives, developed action plans, evaluation) of a strategic plan during a strategic planning process. In this paper, it is presented and analyzed three case studies, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Historical Museum of the University of Athens, as applications of strategic planning and targeting in the specific area of art museums.

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Kaiser MM (n.d.) Strategic planning in the arts: a practical guide. Kennedy Center Institute for Arts Management, Washinghton, DC. http://www.hkaaa.org.hk/uploads/hkaaa/201208/20120821_120217_34uRC0PAzP_f.pdf

Dexter B, Markert K (2007) The manual of strategic planning for museums. Alta Mira Press, Lanham

Milwaukee Art Museum (2006) Strategic plan 2006–2011. https://mam.org/pdfs/strategicPlans/06_stratPlan.pdf

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (1998) Strategic plan 1999–2010. http://www.sismus.org/museums/plans/The%20NelsonAtkins%20Museum%20of%20Art/The%20Nelson-Atkins%20Museum%20of%20Art_USA_99-10.pdf

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Evangelos Papoulias & Theoklis-Petros Zounis

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Department of Business Administration, University of West Attica, Aigaleo, Greece

Androniki Kavoura

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Efstathios Kefallonitis

Department of Business Administration of Food and Agricultural Enterprises, University of Patras, Agrinio, Greece

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Papoulias, E., Zounis, TP. (2020). Strategic Management and Art Museums: The Case Study of the Historical Museum of the University of Athens. In: Kavoura, A., Kefallonitis, E., Theodoridis, P. (eds) Strategic Innovative Marketing and Tourism. Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36126-6_98

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Museum Marketing in the United States: Two Case Studies

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Case Studies

On or about October 6th or 7th, 1941, occupied Belarus, a Wehrmacht Infantry Battalion Commander gave his three company commanders a single illegal order: “kill all the Jews in your areas of operation.” First company commander complied immediately. Second company commander considered it, and then he rejected the order. The third company commander directed the company’s first sergeant to go kill the Jews while he went back to his office. A single illegal order—three different responses. That’s what makes this such a unique case study.

[PIANO PLAYS]

[MGySgt Amber Starr Hecht]:

It’s very important in the military to constantly be groomed in the laws of armed conflict, and when they’re put in a position of authority, leaders make an impact. Their decisions have consequences and also have second and third order effects. It’s a culture—it’s a way of thinking. It’s keeping us morally and ethically sound.

[MSgt Benjamin S. Causey]:

A lot of training is bullet point. Everyone knows the regulations and the laws specifically, word for word. But, topics regarding leadership and ethics are never very clear cut. They’re very seldom in reality black and white. There’s also education that gives them the opportunity for students to look at a scenario that may on the surface seem black and white. It might seem cut and dry, but once you start digging in, you find that the situation is a little less black and white and also the responses to the situation are kind of complex.

[COL (Ret.) Jody M. Prescott]:

It is very useful to be using a case study rooted in the Holocaust because we have a historical record well researched, well documented, that allows us to be fairly certain about the historical accuracy and it makes it easier to take a small piece of that—to take a fractal—of that genocidal experience, and to look at it under the microscope and to move the students to talk about these issues of ethics and leadership amongst themselves.

The museum provides a website that has a very specific case study document that gives you not only a historical case that even your students can read from, but it also gives the instructor pointers on questions they can ask with the kind of target answers that the instructor might expect to receive. The material provides lots of context about WWII, about the Holocaust, about the German military. One of the great things about the case study is how scalable it is. You can make this a week long lesson or it can be done in an afternoon.

What I tell instructors is, you want to really engage your students. Get them open, get them talking, but don’t give them the answers. You want them to do the research--you want them to read. The way they learn is through the struggle sometimes and you want to put them in the process of learning.

Because, that’s where you’re going to start getting the students thinking about what kinds of things could they do as leaders to be able to make a difference. With a real, historically accurate case study, it’s possible to identify—if not with the officers—with the situations that they faced and how they resolved them.

[PIANO MUSIC FADES OUT]

The Museum has developed a variety of educational approaches for examining a historical case study in which three company commanders responded differently to the same illegal order to shoot the Jewish population in their areas of operations.

The two approaches below,  A Wehrmacht Battalion and its Orders, Fall 1941  and  Ordinary Soldiers: A Study in Ethics, Law, and Leadership , examine the case study through the lenses of leadership and decision making on the Eastern Front and related issues for the military today.

The case study provides an important empirical example of how officers making command decisions during armed conflict will define their duty in different ways. Their decisions reflect a variety of different factors including command climate, situational factors, individual experiences, leadership style, moral and ethical compasses, and social and cultural values.

A Wehrmacht Battalion and its Orders, Fall 1941

Contains:  Case study, historical resources, classroom handouts

Topics covered:  Leadership, ethical decision-making, professional military values, pressures and motivations affecting command decision-making

This approach is designed to focus on leadership philosophy and how that philosophy is put into action. The historical case study reveals the dynamic relationship between command climate, obedience to orders, discipline, and the protection of civilians in armed conflict. It is well-suited for discussions of leadership and ethical decision-making. This model has been used on-site at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum with officers-in-training, non-commissioned officers, and other active duty officers.

A Wehrmacht Battalion  PDF

A Wehrmacht Battalion  Powerpoint

Powerpoint Guide

Ordinary Soldiers: A Study in Ethics, Law, and Leadership

Contains:  Case study, three lesson options, primary sources (including Wehrmacht orders and trial documents)

Topics covered:  Command responsibility, LOAC, professional military values, pressures and motivations affecting command decision-making

Ordinary Soldiers  is a more technical examination of the case study that pairs well with instruction on the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It has three teaching options.

Option A enables participants to practice the Army Regulation 15–6 format for conducting investigations. This approach allows participants to put themselves in the position of investigating officers tasked not just with explaining what happened but also with why it happened and how it might be prevented in the future.

The study questions in Option B consider Rules of Engagement and the Law of Armed Conflict, and they lend themselves to small-group work. These questions are designed to allow participants to approach ethical and legal aspects of the case study from specific perspectives, thereby providing a platform for discussions on leadership.

Option C’s peer-to-peer format provides the opportunity for participants to engage in high levels of simultaneous communication simulating the challenges of leadership and conflict in a cyber environment.

Ordinary Soldiers  is a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Center for Holocaust Studies at West Point joint publication.

Ordinary Soldiers  PDF

Ordinary Soldiers  E-book

Ordinary Soldiers  Kindle edition

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