Children’s Museums
- LAST REVIEWED: 01 February 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 22 February 2018
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791231-0194
- LAST REVIEWED: 01 February 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 22 February 2018
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791231-0194
Introduction
Children’s museums are characterized by their emphasis on the audience and educational orientation to the museum experience rather than on collections or artifact-based experiences. They are unique from other types of museums in that they focus on the needs and interests of children and families and frequently draw on child development and early childhood education philosophies to guide their practice. Children’s museums also provide more active or “hands-on” experiences and environments that afford different types of interactions than is found in more traditional museum settings. While most of the content of children’s museum exhibitions is general, some museums have a specific orientation toward the sciences or the arts. The notion of a “children’s museum” is an American phenomenon born out of the progressive era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and first pioneered by the opening of Brooklyn Children’s Museum in 1899. The earliest children’s museums were intended to see to the needs of young people and provided access to museum collections and content specifically to children through alternative formats. The earliest seeds of the idea were developed in the mid-1880s at the Victoria and Albert Museum of London, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, in “children’s rooms” and “children’s galleries.” The evolution of the children’s museum format expanded slowly through the early part of the 20th century in the United States and has become common worldwide. Despite the worldwide presence, the vast majority of literature available in this area is based in the United States. Somewhat similar in focus, museums of childhood focus more specifically on the material culture of childhood, such as doll and toy collections, but may also incorporate a range of interactive and hands-on learning experiences. These museums, more typically found in Britain, like their counterparts in the United States, have their roots in children’s rooms and children’s galleries and slowly began shifting their emphasis toward more child-friendly exhibitions and experiences. The largest of these is the V&A Museum of Childhood at Bethnal Green, which established its full role as a museum of childhood in 1974. While museums of childhood are less common worldwide, appearing most often in Canada, England, Wales, Scotland, New Zealand, and Australia, there is a close parallel to the broader children’s museum format. As the concept of museums of childhood expanded over the later part of the 20th century, many newer museums, especially those outside of the United States, have emerged as hybrid versions. Such hybrids provide learning and discovery experiences as well as present exhibits and programs on the history, culture, and experiences of childhood.
General Overviews
As interdisciplinary museums emphasizing audience rather than collections, children’s museums are written about across a wide spectrum of fields including history, anthropology and museum studies, developmental psychology, child development, and educational approaches such as informal learning. As such, the literature about children’s museums, especially the earliest scholarship, often takes the form of discussions and definitions on what these museums are in relation to the museum field (Fisher 1960, Gurian 1999). Other overviews appear in journals focused on children and families. For example, Lewin 1989 introduced the concept of children’s museum in relation to schools and more traditional museums and the role of children’s museums in family life, whereas Butler and Sussman 1989 outlines the value of the children’s museum environment for family-based learning and meaning making. Judd and Kracht 1997 provides an overview of the guiding philosophies and educational approaches that many early children’s museums employed, and Mayfield 2005 provides a more recent overview of the evolution of children’s museums as a field. Materials related to museums of childhood are very limited. Darian-Smith and Pascoe 2013 explores the broad view of children’s material culture.
Butler, Barbara H., and Marvin B. Sussman. Museum Visits and Activities for Family Life Enrichment. New York: Haworth, 1989.
Provides broad considerations of the role of museums as general learning environments and the role of museum experiences for children and families. Includes information more specific to children’s museum environments as informal learning settings.
Darian-Smith, Kate, and Carla Pascoe, eds. Children, Childhood and Cultural Heritage. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2013.
Edited volume with three parts: the first two are more generally related to material culture of children, while the third emphasizes the development of museums of childhood as repositories of children’s material culture. Chapters in Part 3 also explore the differences between museums of childhood and children’s museums.
Edeiken, Linda R. “Children’s Museums: The Serious Business of Wonder, Play, and Learning.” Curator: The Museum Journal 35.1 (1992): 21–27.
DOI: 10.1111/j.2151-6952.1992.tb00731.x
An overview of the early developments of children’s museums and their role in the realm of museums and museum practice generally.
Fisher, Helen V. “Children’s Museums: A Definition and a Credo.” Curator: The Museum Journal 3.2 (1960): 183–192.
DOI: 10.1111/j.2151-6952.1960.tb00632.x
Early essay detailing the purpose and practices of the children’s museum movement. Efforts to articulate the ways in which children’s museums fit within broader definitions of museums.
Gurian, Elaine Heumann. “What Is the Object of This Exercise? A Meandering Exploration of the Many Meanings of Objects in Museums.” Daedalus 128.3 (1999): 163–183.
Philosophical discussion on different types of museums and their foci. Includes a section on the importance of the children’s museum in demonstrating a type of museum practice that emphasizes the audience rather than a concept or collection.
Judd, Mary K., and James B. Kracht. “The World at Their Fingertips: Children in Museums.” In Learning Opportunities beyond School. Edited by Barbara Hatcher and Shirley S. Beck, 21–27. 2d ed. Olney, MD: Association for Childhood Education International, 1997.
Outline of the features and orientation of children’s museum practice, including philosophical and pedagogical elements as well as operational and programmatic structures.
Lewin, Ann W. “Children’s Museums: A Structure for Family Learning.” Marriage and Family Review 13.3–4 (1989): 51–73.
Overview of children’s museums in relation to schools and other types of museums, and key areas of interest for scholars studying children’s museums as part of family life and experiences.
Mayfield, Margie I. “Children’s Museums: Purposes, Practices and Play?” Early Child Development and Care 175.2 (2005): 179–192.
DOI: 10.1080/0300443042000230348
Review of children’s museums worldwide and their conceptual development. Includes information on trends in exhibits and programming as well as issues that children’s museums face in relation to operations and community support. Includes overview of research on children’s museums.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Abduction of Children
- Aboriginal Childhoods
- Addams, Jane
- ADHD, Sociological Perspectives on
- Adolescence and Youth
- Adolescent Consent to Medical Treatment
- Adoption and Fostering
- Adoption and Fostering, History of Cross-Country
- Adoption and Fostering in Canada, History of
- Advertising and Marketing, Psychological Approaches to
- Advertising and Marketing, Sociocultural Approaches to
- Africa, Children and Young People in
- African American Children and Childhood
- After-school Hours and Activities
- Aggression across the Lifespan
- Ancient Near and Middle East, Child Sacrifice in the
- Animals, Children and
- Animations, Comic Books, and Manga
- Anthropology of Childhood
- Archaeology of Childhood
- Ariès, Philippe
- Art History, Children in
- Attachment in Children and Adolescents
- Australia, History of Adoption and Fostering in
- Australian Indigenous Contexts and Childhood Experiences
- Autism, Females and
- Autism, Medical Model Perspectives on
- Autobiography and Childhood
- Benjamin, Walter
- Bereavement
- Best Interest of the Child
- Bioarchaeology of Childhood
- Body, Children and the
- Body Image
- Bourdieu, Pierre
- Boy Scouts/Girl Guides
- Boys and Fatherhood
- Breastfeeding
- Bronfenbrenner, Urie
- Bruner, Jerome
- Buddhist Views of Childhood
- Byzantine Childhoods
- Care, Early Childhood Education and
- Child and Adolescent Anger
- Child Beauty Pageants
- Child Homelessness
- Child Mortality, Historical Perspectives on Infant and
- Child Protection
- Child Protection, Children, Neoliberalism, and
- Child Public Health
- Child Trafficking and Slavery
- Childcare Manuals
- Childhod, Agency and
- Childhood and Borders
- Childhood and Empire
- Childhood as Discourse
- Childhood, Confucian Views of Children and
- Childhood, Memory and
- Childhood Publics
- Childhood Studies and Leisure Studies
- Childhood Studies in France
- Childhood Studies, Interdisciplinarity in
- Childhood Studies, Posthumanism and
- Childhoods in the United States, Sports and
- Childism
- Children and Dance
- Children and Film-Making
- Children and Money
- Children and Social Media
- Children and Sport
- Children and Sustainable Cities
- Children as Language Brokers
- Children as Perpetrators of Crime
- Children, Code-switching and
- Children in the Industrial Revolution
- Children with Autism in a Brazilian Context
- Children, Young People, and Architecture
- Children's Humor
- Children’s Museums
- Children’s Parliaments
- Children’s Reading Development and Instruction
- Children's Views of Childhood
- China, Japan, and Korea
- China's One Child Policy
- Citizenship
- Civil Rights Movement and Desegregation
- Class
- Classical World, Children in the
- Clothes and Costume, Children’s
- Collective Memory in Latin America, Childhoods and Collect...
- Colonial America, Child Witches in
- Colonialism and Human Rights
- Colonization and Nationalism
- Color Symbolism and Child Development
- Common World Childhoods
- Competitiveness, Children and
- Conceptual Development in Early Childhood
- Congenital Disabilities
- Constructivist Approaches to Childhood
- Consumer Culture, Children and
- Consumption, Child and Teen
- Conversation Analysis and Research with Children
- Critical Approaches to Children’s Work and the Concept of ...
- Crying
- Cultural psychology and human development
- Debt and Financialization of Childhood
- Disability
- Discipline and Punishment
- Discrimination
- Disney, Walt
- Divorce And Custody
- Dolls
- Domestic Violence
- Drawings, Children’s
- Early Childhood
- Early Childhood Care and Education, Selected History of
- Eating disorders and obesity
- Education: Learning and Schooling Worldwide
- Environment, Children and the
- Environmental Education and Children
- Ethics in Research with Children
- Eugenics
- Europe (including Greece and Rome), Child Sacrifice in
- Evolutionary Studies of Childhood
- Family Meals
- Fandom (Fan Studies)
- Fathers
- Female Genital Cutting
- Feminist New Materialist Approaches to Childhood Studies
- Feral and "Wild" Children
- Fetuses and Embryos
- Filicide
- Films about Children
- Films for Children
- Folk Tales, Fairy Tales and
- Folklore
- Food
- Foundlings and Abandoned Children
- Freud, Anna
- Freud, Sigmund
- Friends and Peers: Psychological Perspectives
- Froebel, Friedrich
- Gangs
- Gay and Lesbian Parents
- Gender and Childhood
- Generations, The Concept of
- Geographies, Children's
- Gifted and Talented Children
- Global South, Skilling Youth in the
- Globalization
- Growing Up in the Digital Era
- Hall, G. Stanley
- Happiness in Children
- Hindu Views of Childhood and Child Rearing
- Hispanic Childhoods (U.S.)
- Historical Approaches to Child Witches
- History of Childhood in America
- History of Childhood in Canada
- HIV/AIDS, Growing Up with
- Homeschooling
- Humor and Laughter
- Images of Childhood, Adulthood, and Old Age in Children’s ...
- Infancy and Ethnography
- Infant Mortality in a Global Context
- Innocence and Childhood
- Institutional Care
- Intercultural Learning and Teaching with Children
- Islamic Views of Childhood
- Japan, Childhood in
- Juvenile Detention in the US
- Key, Ellen
- Klein, Melanie
- Labor, Child
- Latin America
- Learning, Language
- Learning to Write
- Legends, Contemporary
- Literary Representations of Childhood
- Literature, Children's
- Love and Care in the Early Years
- Magazines for Teenagers
- Maltreatment, Child
- Maria Montessori
- Marxism and Childhood
- Masculinities/Boyhood
- Material Cultures of Western Childhoods
- Mead, Margaret
- Media, Children in the
- Media Culture, Children's
- Medieval and Anglo-Saxon Childhoods
- Menstruation
- Middle Childhood
- Middle East
- Migration
- Miscarriage
- Missionaries/Evangelism
- Moral Development
- Moral Panics
- Mothers
- Multi-culturalism and Education
- Music and Babies
- Nation and Childhood
- Native American and Aboriginal Canadian Childhood
- New Reproductive Technologies and Assisted Conception
- Nursery Rhymes
- Organizations, Nongovernmental
- Orphans
- Parental Gender Preferences, The Social Construction of
- Parenting
- Pediatrics, History of
- Peer Culture
- Perspectives on Boys' Circumcision
- Peter Pan
- Philosophy and Childhood
- Piaget, Jean
- Play
- Politics, Children and
- Postcolonial Childhoods
- Post-Modernism
- Poverty, Rights, and Well-being, Child
- Pre-Colombian Mesoamerica Childhoods
- Premodern China, Conceptions of Childhood in
- Prostitution and Pornography, Child
- Psychoanalysis
- Queer Theory and Childhood
- Race and Ethnicity
- Racism, Children and
- Radio, Children, and Young People
- Readers, Children as
- Refugee and Displaced Children
- Reimagining Early Childhood Education, Reconceptualizing a...
- Relational Ontologies
- Relational Pedagogies
- Rights, Children’s
- Risk and Resilience
- Russia
- School Shootings
- Sex Education in the United States
- Sexuality
- Siblings
- Siblings, Learning Disabilities and
- Social and Cultural Capital of Childhood
- Social Habitus in Childhood
- Social Movements, Children's
- Social Policy, Children and
- Socialization and Child Rearing
- Socio-cultural Perspectives on Children's Spirituality
- Sociology of Childhood
- South African Birth to Twenty Project
- South Asia
- South Asia, History of Childhood in
- Special Education
- Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence
- Spock, Benjamin
- Sports and Organized Games
- Street Children
- Street Children And Brazil
- Subcultures
- Sure Start
- Teenage Fathers
- Teenage Pregnancy
- Television
- The Bible and Children
- The Harms and Prevention of Drugs and Alcohol on Children
- The Spaces of Childhood
- Theater for Children and Young People
- Theories, Pedagogic
- Tourism
- Toys
- Transgender Children
- Tweens
- Twins and Multiple Births
- Unaccompanied Migrant Children
- United Kingdom, History of Adoption and Fostering in the
- United States, Schooling in the
- Value of Children
- Views of Childhood, Jewish and Christian
- Violence, Children and
- Visual Representations of Childhood
- Voice, Participation, and Agency
- Vygotsky, Lev and His Cultural-historical Approach to Deve...
- War
- Welfare Law in the United States, Child
- Well-Being, Child
- Western Europe and Scandinavia
- Western Literature, The Urban Child in
- Witchcraft in the Contemporary World, Children and
- Work and Apprenticeship, Children's
- Young Carers
- Young Children and Inclusion
- Young Children’s Imagination
- Young Lives
- Young People, Alcohol, and Urban Life
- Young People and Climate Activism
- Young People and Disadvantaged Environments in Affluent Co...