GREM Research Group on Museums and Education

Since 1981, GREM has carried out research on education and museums which has been supported by the Université du Québec à Montréal, particularly the Department of Educational Sciences. Certain of these projects were also subsidized by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada the SSHRC, as well by FCAR (fonds pour la formation de chercheurs et l'aide à la recherche) in Quebec and the Ministry of Heritage of the Canadian government.

Mission Statement The GREM was created in 1981. It has as its main objective the development of a domain of research, ie. museum education. While the educational function of museums is acknowledged, and while musem visits are considered as educational strategies within school curricula since 1923, there has been little scientific research carried out in this field. In collaboration with museums and school boards, GREM has launched a program of research which consists in the elaboration, evaluation and validation of learning models specific to museums. To carry out this program, GREM studies the interactions between the different components of pedagogical situations in museums, that is, the subject( student/visitor), the object (themes) the agent(the totality of the human and material resources) and the context (the internal and external environment). From the analysis of the interactions of these factors, pedagogical models that are specific to the museum environment have emerged. Doctoral dissertations and Master's thesis have been submitted and successfully defended within this approach. The research findings of the GREM have been published in articles and journals.

Article available 1994 ALLARD, M., BOUCHER, S., FOREST, L. «The museum and the school». The McGill Journal of Education, vol. 29 , n° 2, Spring, pp. 197-212. 1998 ALLARD, Michel and LAROUCHE, Marie-Claude. «Experimental Modeling of Museum Education in a Context of Cultural Diversity», ICOM/CECA Conference 1998, International Concil of Museums, Committee of Education and Cultural Action, Interpreting natural and cultural diversity, Monday 12 october to Wednesday 14 october 1998, Melbourne Convention Centre, Melbourne, Australia, 17 pages.