Gathering Together with Purpose: A New Framework for Museum Education

This chapter offers a program planning framework centered on concepts of gathering and care to reexamine how people come together in museum spaces for learning. Considering both the public and internal dimensions of museums, the authors look at how bringing groups together intentionally can elevate the effectiveness of museum education practices, create more meaningful community conversations, and demonstrate the value of all participants by prioritizing them in museum program design. Creating experiences that are purposely designed around care creates openings for exploration, engagement, and connection without an expectation of specific outcomes, allowing opportunities for new forms of collaboration to emerge. The chapter concludes with specific examples of how this framework can be employed through programming and practices in the museum education.