Arguing gender inequity remains one of the biggest challenges of our time, and framed within the concept of ‘pedagogic contact zones’, our article shares findings from a five-year feminist, cross-national study of women adult educators and community practitioners in public museums and art galleries in Canada and the United Kingdom. Findings show a general lack of feminist consciousness and pedagogical skills amongst these women, problematic essentialist depictions of women educators that contrast portrayals of curators, and an equation of feminism with ‘bias’. Yet there is a growing number of women who identify as feminists and take up women’s issues in a variety of ways. Museums have the ability to be sites of feminist adult education and make contributions to gender struggle.
BatliwalaS. (2013) Engaging with empowerment: An intellectual and experimental journey, New Delhi: Women Unlimited.
2.
ButlerJ. (1999) Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity, New York, NY: Routledge.
3.
ChobotM.ChobotR. (1990) Museums as educational institutions. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education47: 55–62.
4.
CloverD. E.ButterwickS.CollinsL. (2015) Women, adult education and leadership in Canada, Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing.
5.
CloverD. E.StoneE. (2016) Casting light and shadow: Reflections on nonformal adult education at Tate Modern. In: CloverD. E.SanfordK.BellL.JohnsonK. (eds) Museums and adult education: Animation social and cultural change, Rotterdam: Sense Publishing, pp. 191–202.
6.
GlaserJ.ZenetouA. (1994) Gender perspectives: Essays on women and museums, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institutions Press.
7.
EllisL. (2002) The backlash to access. Engage11: 40–42.
8.
EnglishL.IrvingC. (2015) Feminism in community: Adult education for transformation, Rotterdam: Sense Publishing.
9.
FlemingD. (2002) Positioning the museum for social inclusion. In: Sandell (ed.) Museums, society, inequality, New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 213–224.
10.
HeinG. (2012) Progressive museum education: John Dewey and democracy, Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
11.
Hooper-GreenhillE. (2007) Museums and education: Purpose, pedagogy and education, London: Routledge.
12.
Hooper-GreenhillE. (1992) Museums and the shaping of knowledge, London: Routledge.
13.
IllerisH. (2006) Museums and galleries as performative sites for lifelong learning: Constructions, deconstructions and reconstructions of audience positions in museum and gallery education. Museum and Society4(1): 15–26.
14.
JanesR. (2009) Museums in a troubled world, Milton Park, VA: Routledge.
15.
KimmelM. (2013) Angry white men: American masculinity at the end of the era, New York, NY: Nation Books.
16.
LevinA. (2010) Gender, sexuality and museums, London: Routledge.
17.
MaltC. (2006) Women, museums and the public sphere. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies2(2): 115–136.
18.
Manicom, L., & Walters, S. (Eds). (2012). Feminist popular education: Creating pedagogies of possibility. New York, NY: Palgrave.
19.
MayoP. (2012) Museums, cultural politics and adult learning. In: EnglishL.MayoP. (eds) Learning with adults, Rotterdam: Sense Publishing.
20.
McRobbieA. (2009) The aftermath of feminism: Gender, culture and social change, London: Sage.
21.
McTavishL. (2008) Strategic donations: Women and museums in New Brunswick, 1862–1930. Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d”Études Canadiennes42(2): 93–116.
22.
MerriweatherL.CoffeyH.FitchettP. (2016) Formally informal: Confronting race through public narratolological pedagogy in a museum space. In: CloverD. E.SanfordK.BellL.JohnsonK. (eds) Museums and adult education: Animation social and cultural change, Rotterdam: Sense Publishing.
23.
Ostrouch-Kamińska, J., & Vieira, C. (Eds). (2014). Private world(s): Gender and informal learning of adults. Rotterdam: Sense Publishing.
24.
PerryG.CunninghamC. (1999) Academies, museums and canons of art, London: The Open University and Yale University Press.
25.
PhillipsR. B. (2011) Museum pieces: Toward the indigenization of Canadian museums, Montreal: McGill/Queens University Press.
26.
Pollock, G., & Zemans, J. (Eds). (2007). Museums after modernism: Strategies of engagement. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 173–177.
27.
Pratt, M. (1991) Arts of the contact zone. Profession (pp. 33–40).
28.
Sandell, R., & Nightingale, E. (Eds). (2012). Museums, equality and social justice. London: Routledge.
29.
ScottA. F. (1984) On seeing and not seeing: A case of historical invisibility. The Journal of American History71(1): 7–21.
30.
SilvermanL. (2010) The social work of museums, London: Routledge.
31.
Taber, N., & Goutro, P. (2006). Women and adult education in Canadian society. In T. Fenwick, T. Nesbit, & B. Spencer (Eds.), Contexts of adult education: Canadian perspectives (pp. 58–67). Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing.
32.
Taber, N. (Ed.) (2015). Special Edition. Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education, 27(2).
33.
TerryA. (2013) Gender, Canadian nationhood and “Keeping house”: The cultural bureaucratization of Dundurn Castle in Hamilton, Ontario, 1900–1960s. Gender & History25(1): 47–64.
34.
TippettM. (1990) Making culture: English-Canadian institutions and the arts before the Massey commission, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
35.
TuyetN. T. (2007) The Vietnam Women’s Museum: The promotion of women’s rights to gender equality and gender issues. Museum International59(4): 70–79.
36.
UNESCO (1997) Museums, libraries and cultural heritage: Democratising culture, creating knowledge and building bridges, Hamburg: IEU.
37.
WhitelawA. (2012) Women, museums and the problem of biography. In: HillK. (ed.) Museums and biographies: Stories, objects, identities, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, pp. 75–86.
38.
Williams, R. (1958). Culture and Society 1780–1950. London: Chatto and Windus.
