Historical learning processes of primary school chlildren in museum collections

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Bernd Wagner
• Subject Area: General Education and History of Education
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 471257198

Museum and university collections display or preserve an extensive material and cultural heritage that is only partially accessible toprimary school children. Many of the objects in the collections, most of which are kept in storage rooms and depots, are not accessible to primary school children. The few educational opportunities available in collections often arise without educational science expertise and without the participation of primary school children, although the educational potential of collection objects has been extensively described in theoretical works in the context of studies on a pedagogy of material culture. One reason for this is that there are few qualitative empirical studies on the theoretical work of general pedagogy and historical educational research that elaborate educational potentials in collections with reference to subject didactics and point out possibilities for cooperation between schools and collections. Based on two school-related collections, which have references to known object and life worlds of primary school children as well as the activity of collecting, the planned ethnographic research project will conduct qualitative-reconstructive empirical research on the affordance of historical collection objects, and the collections will be opened upexemplarily with the anthropological approach to contact zones for 8 to 11-year-old primary school children (Holdenried 2017, Norman 1999). The research project on the didactics of primary school teaching, Sachunterricht Sozialwissenschaften at the University of Leipzig is planned in cooperation with the Schulmuseum Leipzig and Prof.'in Dr. Sandra Chistolini, who is responsible for the university collection Fondo Pizzigoni in Rome. With reference to qualitative reconstructive educational research, two sub-studies will examine (video-)ethnographically the forms of confrontation of primary school children with historical collection objects. Based on the anthropological concept of contact zones, which describes approaches to historical change and has been transferred to museum pedagogy and further developed in the course of the Institute's own preliminary work, selected objects in the collection will be made accessible to primary school children (Clifford 1997; Wagner 2010). The materiality of the objects in the collection can encourage primary school children to try things out for themselves. The objects can also attract attention through the history of the collection with its different types of storage and inventory numbers. They have a character of affordance that can include offers of use and stimulate performative interactions (Fox, R./ Panagiotopoulos, D./ Tsouparopoulou, Ch. 2015; Norman 1999; Lewin 1969). In the planned research project, we will work on this empirically little elaborated character of challenge and affordance and its significance for historical learning processes.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Italy
• Cooperation Partner: Professorin Dr. Sandra Chistolini