Key Concepts of Museology - ICOM

EDUCATION
n. (Latin: educatio, educere, to guide, to lead
out of) – Equivalent in French: éducation; Spanish:
educación; German: Erziehung, Museumspädagogik;
Italian: istruzione; Portuguese:
educaçāo.
Generally speaking, education means
the training and development of
human beings and their capacities by
implementing the appropriate means
to do so. Museum education can be
defi ned as a set of values, concepts,
knowledge and practices aimed at
ensuring the visitor’s development;
it is a process of acculturation which
relies on pedagogical methods, development,
fulfi lment, and the acquisition
of new knowledge.
1. The concept education should be
defi ned in relation to other terms, the
fi rst of these being instruction, which
“concerns the mind and is understood
as knowledge acquired by which
one becomes skilful and learned”
(Toraille, 1985). Education relates
to both the heart and the mind, and
is understood as knowledge which
one aims to update in a relationship
which sets knowledge in motion to
develop understanding and individual
reinvestment. Education is the
action of developing moral, physical,
intellectual and scientifi c values, and
E
knowledge. Knowledge, know-how,
being and knowing how to be are four
major components in the educational
fi eld. The term education comes
from the Latin “educere”, to lead out
of (i.e. out of childhood) which assumes
a dimension of active accompaniment
in the transmission process.
It is connected with the notion of
awakening, which aims to arouse
curiosity, to lead to questioning and
develop the capacity to think. The
purpose of informal education is thus
to develop the senses and awareness;
it is a development process which presupposes
change and transformation
rather than conditioning and inculcation,
notions it tends to oppose.
The shaping of it therefore happens
via instruction which conveys useful
knowledge, and education which
makes this knowledge transformable
and able to be reinvested by the individual
to further the process of his
becoming a human being.
2. In a more specifi cally museum
context, education is the mobilisation
of knowledge stemming from
the museum and aimed at the development
and the fulfi lment of individuals,
through the assimilation of
this knowledge, the development of
new sensitivities and the realisation of
new experiences. “Museum pedagogy
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