TY - JOUR

T1 - Ethnicity and Gender in Museum Representations of Human Evolution

T2 - The Unquestioned and the Challenged in Learners’ Meaning Making

AU - Piqueras, Jesús

AU - Achiam, Marianne

AU - Edvall, Susanna

AU - Ek, Charlotte

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s).

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - Scientific representations of human evolution often embrace stereotypes of ethnicity and gender that are more aligned with socio-cultural discourses and norms than empirical facts. The present study has two connected aims: to understand how ethnicity and gender are represented in an exhibition about human evolution, and to understand how that representation influences learners’ meaning making. First, we analysed an exhibition with realistic reconstructions of early hominids in a museum of natural history, to identify dualisms related to the representation of gender and ethnicity that have been recognised in research. Then, we studied the processes of meaning making in the exhibition during an out-of-school educational activity, in which groups of teenaged students explore and discuss the hominid reconstructions. Our results show that the exhibition displays human evolution in the form of a linear sequence from a primitive African prehistory to a more advanced European present. Behind this depiction of human evolution lies stereotypic notions of ethnicity and gender: notions that were incorporated into the students’ meaning making during the educational activity. When students noticed aspects of ethnicity, their meaning making did not dispute the messages represented in the exhibition; these were accepted as scientific facts. Conversely, when the students noticed aspects related to gender, they often adopted a more critical stance and challenged the representations from different perspectives. We discuss the implications of our findings for exhibit design and evolution education more generally. In doing so, we offer our perspectives on the design of learning environments to salvage inherently sexist, racist, imperial science.

AB - Scientific representations of human evolution often embrace stereotypes of ethnicity and gender that are more aligned with socio-cultural discourses and norms than empirical facts. The present study has two connected aims: to understand how ethnicity and gender are represented in an exhibition about human evolution, and to understand how that representation influences learners’ meaning making. First, we analysed an exhibition with realistic reconstructions of early hominids in a museum of natural history, to identify dualisms related to the representation of gender and ethnicity that have been recognised in research. Then, we studied the processes of meaning making in the exhibition during an out-of-school educational activity, in which groups of teenaged students explore and discuss the hominid reconstructions. Our results show that the exhibition displays human evolution in the form of a linear sequence from a primitive African prehistory to a more advanced European present. Behind this depiction of human evolution lies stereotypic notions of ethnicity and gender: notions that were incorporated into the students’ meaning making during the educational activity. When students noticed aspects of ethnicity, their meaning making did not dispute the messages represented in the exhibition; these were accepted as scientific facts. Conversely, when the students noticed aspects related to gender, they often adopted a more critical stance and challenged the representations from different perspectives. We discuss the implications of our findings for exhibit design and evolution education more generally. In doing so, we offer our perspectives on the design of learning environments to salvage inherently sexist, racist, imperial science.

KW - Faculty of Science

KW - human evolution

KW - museum

KW - exhibition

KW - equity

KW - education

KW - communication

U2 - 10.1007/s11191-021-00314-y

DO - 10.1007/s11191-021-00314-y

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85122475480

VL - 31

SP - 1517

EP - 1540

JO - Science & Education

JF - Science & Education

SN - 0926-7220

ER -