Journal for Learning through the Arts

Social phenomenological analysis is presented as a research method for musem and art education. After explaining its methodological background, it is shown how this method has been applied in a study of gallery talks or guided tours in art museums: Analyzing the situation by description and interpretation, a model for understanding gallery talks is developed: "Pedagogical Art Communication".

Results: The interplay among the recipient group, the aesthetic object, and educator is characterized by the participants acquiring (i.e. by aesthetic experience) and the educator imparting (especially) knowledge. In the future, art education and museum education need to focus less on dissolving this difference (in the sense of "methods that work") and spend more time on finding ways of sensibly dealing with the difference between imparting and acquirement of art. So the practice would be a pedagogical art communication in which art educators impart what can be imparted (to the extent that it is "impartable"), while at the same time stimulating and enabling the acquirement of knowledge – and, at a broader level, coordinating the interplay of imparting and acquirement in social, performative and spatial dimensions.