Museum Education MSc
Reimagining Futures through Materiality and Narratives EDUC51121P
- Academic Session: 2026-27
- School: School of Education
- Credits: 20
- Level: Level 5 (SCQF level 11)
- Typically Offered: Semester 2
- Available to Visiting Students: Yes
- Collaborative Online International Learning: No
- Curriculum For Life: No
Short Description
This course enables students to re-imagine museum and cultural practices in order to address the global polycrisis and contribute to the creation of positive futures. It draws on theoretical concepts of 'new materiality' and 'narrative imagination' to inform the design of socially and environmentally just museum education experiences which support learner agency for creating positive futures. It asks: 'What should museum education and cultural education for the future be like?', using theories and practices of 'utopia as method' to enable the critical and creative exploration of this question.
Timetable
10 weeks of in person teaching for 2 hours per week
Excluded Courses
None
Co-requisites
None
Assessment
Essay based on seminars (3000 words) 75%
Portfolio based on project work (1000 words) 25%
Course Aims
1. To enable the critical evaluation and design of museum and cultural education practices for addressing or having the potential to address the global poly crisis and create more positive futures.
2.To nurture critical engagement with theoretical concepts and existing museum education practices for application within critical judgements of museum education in relation to its support for cultivating agency towards diverse, inclusive, human and 'more than human' futures.
3.By combining imaginative, experiential, immersive experiences with relevant literature and theory, to support students in developing capacities for critical imagination and agency which they are competent to apply in professional practice, with the aim of nurturing these capacities in others.
4.To critically engage with theory and literature related to 'imagination', 'futures', 'new materiality' and 'narrative imagination' and synthesise these concepts in order to imagine and design future-orientated, museum education space and experience.
Intended Learning Outcomes of Course
By the end of this course students will be able to:
1. Critically evaluate and design museum and cultural education practice which tries to address the polycrisis and create more positive futures
2. Cohere relevant theories and practice to justify and articulate ideas in relation to diverse, inclusive, human and 'more than human' futures
3. Demonstrate critical and autonomous imagination related to museum practices which have the potential to nurture those same capacities in museum learners
4. Draw fluently on theories and literature to imagine and design future-orientated museum education practices