Twelfth International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

Elliot Eisner wrote on silent pedagogy in museums in 1988, specifically outlining how silent pedagogy impacts visitor experience and feelings of inclusivity. Silent pedagogy is essentially what museums do to help visitors experience works in the museum, whether art, historical, anthropological, or natural. Cues involve how works are displayed, navigation, content displayed, and more. This lightning talk re-examines silent pedagogy by analyzing several examples of museums using Eisner’s case study research methods to identify successful and unsuccessful techniques. The goal of this study is to examine the use of silent pedagogy in museums thirty years after Eisner’s article to examine to what degree its use has changed.