ABSTRACT
The educational role of museums today is of high priority, and while the emphasis on education and learning varies from country to country (Moffat and Woollard 1999; Stöger and Stannett 2001), this reprioritisation can be seen as part of an international movement to renegotiate the purposes of museums as they reshape their nineteenth-and twentiethcentury philosophies to respond to the demands of the twenty-first century. This renegotiation may entail considerable change within museums as institutional goals are reviewed, different sources of funding are investigated and new posts are created. In England, for example, education is high on government cultural agendas, outlined through a number of policy documents and supported by a range of ‘capacity-building’ strategies. However, the insistence by government and associated organisations on the growth and development of the educational capacity of museums, and especially of museum-school services (DCMS 1998, 2000, 2001, 2005), has been controversial, both welcomed and resisted.
