"This book exists, is here for you as a resource because we, the authors/editors of this text (Suzanne Blum Malley and Ames Hawkins), saw very similar, very exciting things happening in our classrooms using ethnographic research methods in our inquiry-based first-year writing classrooms. We have watched our students develop strong voices as writers, while also using critical analytical skills and addressing important ideas of ethics, identity, and representation. In our classrooms, we have seen a greater level of investment in ethnographic projects than we have seen in more traditional rhetorically based assignments. Ethnographic writing, by creating a very authentic role for the researcher and a connection to community, offers a means to address the alienation and/or boredom that many non-traditional writers and first-year college students feel when confronted with the traditional composition curriculum--any curriculum, actually. More importantly, ethnographic research allows students to access what can seem so terribly difficult when framed in other assignments: to pursue a line of inquiry rather than a topic, to research ethically, and to write with authority. Though we initially wrote this text with the first-year writing classroom in mind, we have come to understand that there are many courses that also present students with ethnographic writing assignments. These courses may or may not be designed to spend much time on the question of how to get started with these projects. In addition, instructors might want to supplement the basic methodological approach with their own course content. We are also aware that textbook size and cost has exploded in recent years. We believe in preserving the internet as an open-source space and wish to reinforce our belief with practice. As a result of these realizations, we have reorganized the project in order to 1) Make it relevant and accessible to students in nearly any college classroom who might be assigned an ethnographic writing project; 2) Allow instructors to supplement the core methodology (presented here in Chapters 1-6), as they see fit, using any number of Supplemental Modules that offer additional materials, lenses, and multi-modal examples of and for issues and ideas discussed in the core text. 3) Make it accessible and available, via the internet and other technological platforms, to students and instructors everywhere. A disclaimer: we want to make clear that while we use and invoke methodological principles and practices associated with ethnography, we are not claiming Engaging Communities as a text that teaches ethnography as a research methodology. This book has been designed to help students (most likely undergraduates, perhaps high school, possibly graduates) envision interesting, hands-on research projects that are eventually converted--translated--into written text. Throughout the text, we often use the word ethnographic in order to describe our methodological presentation and theoretical concerns as this term reflects the pedagogical (teaching) and rhetorical (arguing) concerns of ethnography, rather than the actual disciplinary understanding of the methodology. We choose to use to teach this way because ethnographic writing allows for specific discussion regarding how to involve and interest a reader, in evoking physical and emotional connection with writing, rather than simply becoming informed or persuaded by any specific piece of writing"--Back cover

As art museum educators become more involved in curatorial decisions and creating opportunities for community voices to be represented in the galleries of the museum, museum education is shifting from responding to works of art to developing authentic opportunities for engagement with their communities. Current research focuses on museum education experiences and the wide-reaching benefits of including these experiences into art education courses. As more universities add art museum education to their curricula, there is a need for a text to support the topic and offer examples of real-world museum education experiences. Engaging Communities Through Civic Engagement in Art Museum Education deepens knowledge on museum and art education and civic engagement and bridges the gap from theory to practice. The chapters focus on various sectors of this research, including diversity and inclusion in museum experiences, engaging communities through new techniques, and museum and university partnerships. As such, it includes coverage on timely topics that include programs and audience engagement with the LGBTQ+, refugee, disability, and senior communities; socially responsive museum pedagogy; and the use of student workers. This book is ideal for museum educators, museum directors, curators, professionals, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students who are interested in updated knowledge and research in art education, curriculum development, and civic engagement.

International, multi-disciplinary perspectives on the key question of community engagement in theory and practice in a diverse range of heritage settings. Across the global networks of heritage sites, museums, and galleries, the importance of communities to the interpretation and conservation of heritage is increasingly being recognised. Yet the very term "meaningful community engagement" betrays a myriad of contrary approaches and understandings. Who is a community? How can they engage with heritage and why would they want to? How do communities and heritage professionals perceive one another? What does itmean to "engage"? These questions unsettle the very foundations of community engagement and indicate a need to unpick this important but complex trend. Engaging Heritage, Engaging Communities critically explores the latest debates and practices surrounding community collaboration. By examining the different ways in which communities participate in heritage projects, the book questions the benefits, costs and limitations of community engagement. Whether communities are engaging through innovative initiatives or in response to economic, political or social factors, there is a need to understand how such engagements are conceptualised, facilitated and experienced by boththe organisations and the communities involved. Bryony Onciul is Lecturer in History at the University of Exeter; Michelle Stefano is the Co-Director of Maryland Traditions, the folklife program for the state of Maryland and Visiting Assistant Professor in American Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Stephanie Hawke is a project manager and fundraiser, working on a range of projects aiming to engage communities with culturalheritage. Contributors: Gregory Ashworth, Evita Busa, Helen Graham, Julian Hartley, Stephanie Hawke, Carl Hogsden, Shatha Abu Khafajah, Nicole King, Bernadette Lynch, Billie Lythberg, Conal McCarthy, Ashley Minner, Wayne Ngata, Bryony Onciul, Elizabeth Pishief, Gregory Ramshaw, Philipp Schorch, Justin Sikora, Michelle Stefano, Helen Tully, John Tunbridge.

As U.S. museums evolve from their role as elite institutions to organizations serving multiple stakeholders, they must adopt new communication practices to meet their social missions and organizational goals. Engaging Diverse Communities, the first book-length study of museum public relations for practitioners since 1983, details how institutions can use communication fundamentals to establish and maintain relationships with a wide range of cultural groups and constituencies. Melissa A. Johnson interviews communicators at cultural heritage museums to understand the challenges of representing communities based on racial and ethnic, generational, immigrant, and language identities. Exploring how communications professionals function as cultural intermediaries by negotiating competing and intersecting identities and mastering linguistic and visual code-switching, she presents an analysis of the communication tactics of more than two hundred art, history, African American, American Indian, and other diverse museums. Engaging Diverse Communities illuminates best public relations practices, especially in media relations, digital press relations, website content production, social media, and event planning. This essential text for museum professionals also addresses visual aesthetics, cultural expression, and counter-stereotypes, and offers guidance on how to communicate cultural attractiveness.

This volume is designed for museum professionals who are hungry for information about how to design experiences in partnership with their communities. Allison showcases how museums, large and small, are working with communities and provides a roadmap that demonstrates how museum professionals can listen to their audiences.

Open this book to find insights, resources, and strategies from seventeen ground-breaking educators and community leaders around the world who share passionate first-person accounts of how to engage students and families of diverse backgrounds. Diverse schools offer enriched academic and social environments, as students and families of different backgrounds and experiences provide a vibrant mosaic of insights, perspectives, and skills. Innovative Voices in Education features stories from around the world, as innovative teachers, educational leaders, and community activists passionately share personal accounts of their successes, challenges, and lessons learned. Book jacket.

Drawing on first-hand accounts of action research in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, The Heart of Community Engagement illustrates the transformative learning journeys of exemplary catalysts for community-based change. Practitioners’ stories of community engagement for social justice in the Global South elucidate the moments of insight and transformation that deepened their practice: how to deal with uncertainty, recognize their own blind spots, become aware of what is emergent and possible in the moment, and weave an inclusive bond of love, respect, and purpose. Each successive narrative adds a deeper level of understanding of the inner practice of community engagement. The stories illuminate the reflective, or inner, practice of the outside change agent, whether a planner, designer, participatory action researcher, or community development practitioner. From a shantytown in South Africa, to a rural community in India, or an informal settlement in peri-urban Mexico, the stories focus attention on the greatest leverage point for change that we, as engaged practitioners, have: our own self-awareness. By the end of the book, the practitioners are not only aware of their own conditioned beliefs and assumptions, but have opened their minds and hearts to the complex and dynamic patterns of emergent change that is possible. This book serves as a much-needed reader of practice stories to help instructors and students find the words, concepts, and examples to talk about their own subjective experience of community engagement practice. The book applies some of the leading-edge concepts from organizational development and leadership studies to the fields of planning, design, and community engagement practice. Key concepts include the deep dive of sensing the social field, seeing the whole, and presencing the emergent future. The book also provides a creative bridge between participatory action research and design thinking: user-based design, rapid prototyping, and learning from doing.