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Who gets to decide what a museum visitor should learn, and how? This question has driven a century-long transformation in curatorial practice, shifting the role of the curator from a transmitter of authorized knowledge to a facilitator of multiple, often contested, forms of public engagement. The subfield of curatorial pedagogy and publics examines how museums and exhibitions have conceptualized their educational mission and how those concepts have changed in response to social movements, institutional critique, and the demands of diverse audiences.
The earliest framework, Museum Education, treated the museum as a school for the public. Curators and educators designed didactic exhibitions, labels, and guided tours to instruct visitors in established canons of art, history, or science. The pressure behind this model was the need to legitimize museums as public institutions by providing moral and intellectual uplift. This framework assumed a passive, receptive public and an expert curator who held the keys to knowledge. It dominated until the late 1960s, when its top-down approach began to face serious challenges.
New Museology emerged from critiques of the museum's elitism and complicity with colonial and class hierarchies. It argued that museums should be not just repositories but instruments of social change. The pressure came from civil rights movements, postcolonial critiques, and the rise of critical theory. New Museology shifted focus from objects to people and communities, introducing the idea that museums could be sites of dialogue and that curatorial work should involve the public in interpretation. This framework coexisted with Museum Education for a time but gradually replaced its top-down model. The Center for Urban Pedagogy, founded later but rooted in this ethos, exemplifies how New Museology's community focus could be turned into practical, collaborative projects. New Museology's community ethos set the stage for later frameworks, though it was often criticized for being too broad and lacking concrete methods for sharing authority.
In the 1990s, two overlapping frameworks emerged that redefined the relationship between curating and learning. The Educational Turn treated the exhibition itself as a pedagogical event. Artists and curators began to make the curatorial process—research, discussion, collaboration—visible as a form of learning. Influenced by critical pedagogy (Paulo Freire) and relational aesthetics, this framework differed from New Museology by focusing less on institutional reform and more on the temporary, event-based nature of learning within the gallery. The pressure was to break down the distinction between art production and reception, turning the gallery into a space of shared inquiry.
At the same time, Participatory Curating emerged with a stronger emphasis on public involvement in the creation of content. Instead of merely inviting audiences to learn from curated displays, participatory curators invited visitors to contribute objects, stories, or interpretations. This framework was a direct response to the perceived passivity of traditional museum education. It absorbed some of New Museology's community focus but narrowed it to specific participatory projects, often retaining curatorial control over the final shape of the exhibition. Participatory Curating remains active today, especially in digital platforms and co-curated exhibitions, but its limitation is that participation can be tokenistic if not accompanied by genuine power-sharing. The Educational Turn and Participatory Curating coexisted and sometimes overlapped, but they differed in emphasis: the former prioritized the process of learning, while the latter prioritized public contribution.
Since 2010, two more radical frameworks have pushed the boundaries of curatorial pedagogy. Community Curating builds on Participatory Curating but goes further by giving decision-making authority to specific communities—often marginalized groups—to shape exhibitions from the ground up. The pressure came from critiques of participatory projects that still left curators in control. Community Curating insists that the community should define the curatorial agenda, not just contribute content. This framework differs from Participatory Curating in its emphasis on governance and long-term relationships rather than one-off participation. It also revives New Museology's social mission but with a more explicit political edge and a clearer methodology for shared authority.
Decolonial Curating emerged from postcolonial and decolonial theory, directly challenging the museum's colonial origins and its continued role in perpetuating Eurocentric knowledge systems. This framework demands not only the repatriation of objects but also the transformation of curatorial methods—how stories are told, who speaks, and what epistemologies are valued. Decolonial Curating coexists with Community Curating but often focuses on structural change at the institutional level. It conflicts with earlier frameworks that assume a universal museum audience or a neutral curatorial voice. For example, it challenges the Educational Turn's aesthetic focus on the curatorial event as insufficiently attentive to power dynamics, and it critiques Participatory Curating for often being apolitical. Decolonial Curating is currently one of the most dynamic and contested frameworks, pushing museums to confront their histories and to reimagine their educational mission from the ground up.
Today, the leading frameworks—Participatory Curating, Community Curating, and Decolonial Curating—are all active, often in the same institutions. They agree that publics should be active participants, not passive recipients, and that curatorial pedagogy must be dialogical and responsive. However, they disagree on the degree of authority transfer. Participatory Curating often retains curatorial control, Community Curating demands community governance, and Decolonial Curating insists on epistemological pluralism and restitution. There is also tension between the Educational Turn's focus on the curatorial event and Community Curating's emphasis on sustained community relationships. These frameworks do not simply replace one another; they coexist in a state of productive conflict, each offering a different answer to the question of who decides what a visitor should learn.