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Musing The Museum: A Case Study Exploring Racial Socialization Through A Black Museum's Organizational Identity
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2025-05
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Educational Psychology
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https://doi.org/10.34944/3jdc-cf69
Abstract
Racial socialization is the well-studied process through which various agents, such as parents, schools, and media impart explicit or implicit messages about the meaning and importance of race. In today’s social-cultural-political landscape of education, discussions about race, and specifically Black history in the United States, are being challenged or even eliminated from classrooms. However, Black museums offer an underexamined avenue to learn about race, ethnicity, and culture and explore one’s identity. In this dissertation, I adopted the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI, Kaplan & Garner, 2017) to investigate how a Black museum provides opportunities for racial socialization, and adult Black museum visitors’ experiences, identity processes, and racial socialization within that context. In this dissertation, I investigated the following three research questions: (1) How does the role identity of a cultural museum—the content, structure, and context of this role identity—influence its racial socialization practices? (2) How do cultural museums guide adult Black museum visitors’ reflection on the representation of their racial identity in museum spaces, or lack thereof? (3) How do cultural museums create opportunities for racial socialization?
This project used a case study approach to investigate these research questions. The site of study is a local Black museum, the African American Museum in Philadelphia (AAMP). Observations, document analysis, narrative interviews with museum staff, and stimulated recall interviews with museum visitors were used as data collection methods. Document analysis was conducted materials like the museum’s website and the museum’s gallery content. Site observations were also conducted at AAMP. Two museum staff were recruited to participate in narrative interviews. Four Black, adult museum visitors were recruited to participate in observations of their time in the museum and narrative, stimulated recall interviews about their visit to AAMP. The findings highlighted how the museum’s organizational role identity framed its practices and created opportunities for racial socialization. AAMP’s curriculum, community outreach and curation were among the ways in which AAMP engages in racial socialization. In addition, Black, adult museum visitors reflected on their racial identity through these experiences, with several themes emerging from the integration of the qualitative data sources. This dissertation concludes with an overview of the study, implications for theory of racial socialization and the DSMRI, methodology in the use of data sources, museum practice in shaping the visitor experience, and policy around Black museum preservation. Last, ideas for future research are included as this inquiry of research is emerging.
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