Museum education, cultural sustainability, and English language teaching in Spain

ABSTRACT

The collaborative action research project presented analysed the potential of museum education to radically transform the way in which English was taught and learnt in three diverse elementary, middle, and high-school contexts in the province of València (Spain). Insights from museum education and New Literacy Studies were used to expand upon the pedagogical affordances of the material and multimodal dimensions of English language teaching, in order to generate more opportunities for student motivation and engagement by connecting with the learners' home and community cultures, identities, languages, and literacies. To assess the impact of the project, a variety of qualitative strategies were used (including classroom recordings, student interviews and questionnaires, and photographs). A model for culturally sustaining pedagogy was suggested, which school and museum educators may use to inform their practice.

KEYWORDS:

• English language teaching
• museum education
• new Literacy Studies
• artefacts
• culturally sustaining pedagogy

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the students, families, and teachers of the schools where this research was set for sharing such an enriching educational experience and for giving the authors permission to reproduce the students’ names, images, and words, and also examples of their work. Finally the authors thank the editor and anonymous reviewers of Pedagogy, Culture, and Society for the improvements they initiated and sustained through their feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, under grant no. HAR2017-85230-R, and by the University of Valencia, under grant no. UV-SFPIE_PID19-1094156.