Sociologial analysis of museum didactics: educational subjects and the dynamics of constitution of exhibition discourse

This article aims to study the educational phenomenon of museums from the sociological analysis of museum didactics. Based on Basil Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic discourse, and, in particular, on the author’s concepts of recontextualization and recontextualizing field, the study addresses the process of production of exhibition discourse of five science museums. The study assumed exhibition discourse as a pedagogic discourse modality and sought not only to bring to light the process of recontextualization of various discourses in the production of the exhibition, but also to characterize the pedagogical subjects that comprise the pedagogic recontextualizing field of the museums studied. By revealing the agents and instances responsible for the recontextualization and the dynamics between them, evidence was found of the power relations between subjects and fields of knowledge involved in the production of exhibition discourse. The analysis – focusing on the sociological dimension of museum didactics – provides key elements for understanding the dynamics of selection and distribution of power in the development of educational activities of museums, contributing to the education of professionals who work in these places and, therefore, to qualifying the educational activities designed by them.