Approaching Activism: A Systematic Review of Museum Conservation Education Program Evaluations

The theory of museum activism argues that when faced with social and ecological crises, museums must act. However, pursuing explicitly activist agendas risks the public trust which is essential for museums’ continued operation. Evaluation could help legitimate activist museum work and maintain public trust, but not all approaches to evaluation are appropriate for an activist context. This thesis determines which approaches are being used to evaluate activist museum work, specifically through a systematic review of conservation education program evaluations. The eighty-one reviewed evaluations employed twenty-five approaches to evaluations. The most frequently employed approach was theory-driven evaluation, followed by responsive evaluation. As well, the results suggest a relationship exists between museum genres and which evaluation approach is employed. These findings set a foundation for determining the nature of this relationship and whether the most prevalent evaluation approaches are the most appropriate to use for evaluations of activist museum work.M.M.St