Choosing to Change? Interpretive Framing of a Traveling Exhibition Affects Its Impact on Hosting Museums

• In Event: 61.068 - MTCC Roundtable Session 23
  In Roundtable Session: 61.068-11 - Internal Practices and Professional Development Within Informal Learning Environments

Abstract

Informal education (IE) organizations are increasingly attempting to reorient their programming and transform their internal practices to serve the goals of educational equity. In this paper, we examine how IE organizations interpreted a traveling exhibition (RACE: Are We So Different?), using interviews with staff from 28 organizations to explore how and when particular interpretive framings of RACE created opportunities for organizational change. Drawing on theories of organizational reflection and change, we identified four continua along which each organization’s interpretive framing of RACE could be positioned. This model offers some insight into the role of interpretive framing in equity-oriented change.

Authors

• Noah Weeth Feinstein, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Corinna Phelps West, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Esther HsuBorger, The University of Wisconsin - Madison