This course positions museum education not as a supplementary function but as a force capable of reshaping institutional purpose, authority, and public value. Students critically examine how contemporary issues - including decolonisation, repatriation, gender justice, participatory practice, co-curation, environmental responsibility, and institutional accountability - are transforming the intellectual and ethical foundations of museums and heritage organisations globally.

The course foregrounds the role of educational thinking in producing structural and fundamental shifts: challenging singular narratives, redistributing interpretive authority, fostering dialogic knowledge production, and embedding socially just practice. Students interrogate how pedagogical frameworks can expose and redress historically partial, exclusionary, or historically dishonest narratives, while cultivating critical public engagement.

Through comparative global case studies (Europe, North America, Asia, Africa), students analyse how cultural policy, governance, and civic expectations shape institutional transformation. Field visits in Glasgow, provide applied investigation of inclusive access strategies, interpretive choices, and how educational design contributes to institutional repositioning.

10 weeks of in person teaching for 2 hours per week. 1 x 1 hour lecture, 1 x 1 hour seminar and 2 hours of external visits.

None

None

Portfolio Part 1 (3000 words) 75%: Education and [Selected Theme]: Institutional Positioning and Transformation - Students select a museum or heritage organisation (UK or international) and produce an advanced critical analysis

Portfolio Part 2 (1000 words) 25%: Designing Education-Led Transformation: A Strategic Intervention - Building directly from Component 1, students design an educational intervention that strategically advances the selected theme within the chosen institution.

■ To examine how educational theory and practice actively reshape museum purpose, governance, and public engagement.

■ To explore contemporary global debates - including decolonisation, repatriation, gender equity, participatory practice, and co-curation - as drivers of educational transformation.

■ To analyse how pedagogical models can disrupt dominant narratives and embed socially just institutional cultures.

■ To cultivate strategic capacity to design education-led institutional change.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

1. Critically evaluate international cultural policy and governance frameworks, identifying how educational strategy can influence institutional direction.

2. Analyse how pedagogical approaches (e.g. participatory, dialogic, critical, decolonial) generate structural and epistemic shifts within museum contexts.

3. Interrogate and propose alternatives to dominant institutional narratives, demonstrating awareness of power, representation, and ethical accountability.

4. Compare global approaches to education-led transformation, assessing contextual opportunities and constraints.

5. Develop a strategically informed proposal that uses educational thinking as a mechanism for institutional change, evidencing policy literacy, critical analysis, and professional leadership.