ABSTRACT
This chapter explores what it might mean to explore children's museum experiences beyond an instrumental concern with learning. It argues that the determination to foreground learning tends to relegate the complex textures of experience to the background. Ultimately, this not only gives us a narrow conception of experience, but it may also diminish our appreciation of the complex textures of experiential learning. Some research interested in learning does indeed include questions of children's perspectives and experiences. In 1998, Ted Ansbacher explored the implications of applying insights from Dewey's Experience and Education more directly to the problems of museum education, claiming that Dewey's work 'speaks directly' to those who work in museums and are concerned with experiential learning. Although the research was ostensibly about learning within the whole family, both the parents and researchers ended up focusing particularly on the children's personal engagements with the museum.
