“Children’s museology refers to the production of museum content and programming not just for or about children, but also by and with children in ways that engage them as valued social actors and knowledge-bearers.” (Monica Eileen Patterson, 2020)
Monica Eileen Patterson’s current research on Children’s Museology is supported by three grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada:
“A New, Critical Children’s Museology” identifies and develops new approaches to producing exhibit content not just for or about children, but by and with children across the globe. It draws together recent interventions in the fields of Childhood Studies, Curatorial Studies, and Museum Studies to ask: How would museum work change if children were to be included, not just as subjects or target audience members, but as active participants and co-creators of museum content and programming? Addressing this question will fill a gap in our knowledge by helping forge a new field Patterson calls “Critical Children’s Museology.” Patterson is sole PI of this project, which is supported by a SSHRC Insight Development Grant.
“Community-based, Collaborative Curating with Children in Cape Town” is a pilot initiative in development with grassroots NGOs in South Africa. Working with local partners, Patterson seeks to develop an innovative, child-centred methodology that uses community-based, collaborative curating with children to produce and document new knowledge about children’s experiences and perspectives in contemporary South Africa. Patterson is sole PI of this project, which is supported by a Carleton/SSHRC Explore Grant.
“Thinking through the Museum: A Partnership Approach to Curating Difficult Knowledge in Public” brings together international scholars, students, museum professionals, and community representatives from 20 museums, universities, and NGOs in Canada, the Netherlands, Poland, South Africa, and the USA. The team works in museum settings to co-produce exhibitions and design tools to challenge elite institutional knowledge systems, and beyond museum walls to explore alternative heritage mobilization in festivals, grassroots archives, and site-based curating, where communities can set their own agendas. Working in 5 thematic research groups that amplify perspectives under-represented in the museum world (Critical Race Museology, Museum Queeries, Unsettling and Indigenizing Museology, National Heritage and Traumatic Memory, and Children’s Museology), the group seeks to establish new terms of engagement for learning from histories of violence and conflict. Patterson is a co-investigator and Coordinating Committee member on this SSHRC Partnership Grant (2021-2028), and leads the project’s Children’s Museology research cluster.
