Family Audiences:

cultivation and maintenance of family audiences in an age of

unlimited free-choice learning

Definition of family

• A family is a multi generational social group of up to 5-6 people with children that comes as a unit to the museum.

• Families are dynamic and changing. Members grow and develop and members are added and subtracted.

• Families constitute an important visitor group for museums, comprising at least 50% of all museum visitors.

Importance of family visitors

• Museums looking at how to cultivate and “enfold” the community throughout the lifespan of its visitors.

• Families offer perfect opportunity to cultivate those visitors.

Families through the lifespan: how do we cultivate them at each age?

• Young children with young parents• School aged children• Teenagers• Young adults: childbearing years• Older adults: grandparents• Enfolding them into the museum

What does family learning look like?

• Playful and highly social experience• Influenced by the ages of the children and

adults in the group• Members learn in different ways• Find value in their own personal observations

and experiences by working, talking, and solving problems together

What learning theories apply to families?

• Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories apply to how families learn

• sociocultural mediation • zone of proximal development • scaffolding • learning through conversation with an adult

or sibling • learning by doing

Inquiry behaviors in family units

• Asking and answering questions• Commenting on the exhibition• Reading labels aloud• Watching one another resulting in modeling --

observational and social learning• Styles of family learning range from the highly

collaborative group which stays together to the more independent unit which often splits up and interacts more independently but come together at certain points for information sharing.

Observing families in museums• Conversation a key characteristic• Families interact in predictable ways, influenced

by the age of the children, familiarity with the setting, and their family learning style.

• Behaviors include a wide range of verbal and non-verbal interactions: looking at exhibitions, participating in programs, visiting the gift shop, engaging in conversation, gesturing, modeling, and emoting. These behaviors are carried out collaboratively within the museum, but also extend beyond the museum.

Typical visit

• Most family visits to museums last about 1-2 hours

and have four distinct phases:

• 1. Orientation (3-10 minutes)

• 2. Intense exhibition viewing (25-30)

• 3. Exhibition cruising (30-40 minutes)

• 4. Leave taking (5-10 minutes)

• Museum visits are seen as educational opportunities with

some anticipation of entertainment. 

• Meaning making is complex and hard to study: Some

families will take time to talk and explore a topic while in

the gallery, while others will wait until the ride home or two

weeks later to discuss it over dinner.

• Families visit museums with different expectations, cultural backgrounds, interest levels, belief system, life experiences and leisure habits.

• All of these factors influence the visitors’ interaction with the exhibition and program material and in turn, impact how they respond to the accompanying members of their family.

Families in art museums• Families come for entertainment and social reasons, but also to learn• They transform the formal agenda into personal activities based on their family

background, mode of interaction, or the adult’s parenting and teaching style • Put more emphasis on social interaction, active participation and entertainment

than they do on opportunities to learn or do something worthwhile with their leisure time .

• Shared, participatory experiences, and having fun together, have the most memorable effects on families in art museums.

• Engaging all family members, providing individual choices and introducing new concepts that include achievable clear tasks have a positive effect on family visits

• Parents associate spending time in an art museum with their children with good parenting

• This indicates the very positive effect and continued relevance of family orientated• exhibitions and workshops.• Interactive, hands-on exhibits are

Family research from art museums

• regular visitors are more likely to have a learning agenda, and that learning takes place in a variety of ways, and not always as intended

• Families prefer activities not to look like what they might do at school; they want to learn without realizing it, and adults enjoy doing activities with their children

• Adults enjoy learning from their children

Exhibit design for families

Is the exhibit designed with families in mind?

Text, readability, accessibility, learning by doing, opportunities for conversation and engagement, modeling

Focus should be on collaborative learning when designing exhibits in order to increase the engagement of their family visitorship

Challenges