Edited by: Ashley Goodfellow Craig | March 27, 2026
첥Ƶ Faculty of Education Professor Lisa Farley and her research colleagues have developed a reflection guide for museum educators to support their efforts to discuss challenging topics and ideas with children.
The guide builds on the team’s 2025 study of programming and practices at children’s museums in Canada and the United States.
Farley says museum educators are navigating increasingly constrained environments when addressing equity, diversity, accessibility and inclusion with young audiences. Often, the idea of “childhood innocence” is cited as a reason to censor or downplay controversial and challenging ideas.
At the same time, Farley says, "children live within the social and political world, and are themselves subjects of and/or witnesses to injustices, violences and inequities."
She adds that the question then becomes "not how to protect them from difficult knowledge, but what it can mean to facilitate meaningful engagements.”
Farley and her colleagues, including York’s Gillian Parekh, associate professor of education and doctoral candidate Suad Ahmed, conducted the original study in partnership with the Association of Children’s Museums (ACM). Their research found that while many children’s museums focus on exploration, play or self-expression, addressing social and historical issues with young audiences were secondary.
Read the full article in the Friday, March 27, 2026 issue of Yfile
Article written by Elaine Smith, special contributing writer