The School-Museum Relationship in Student-Teachers Traineeship: The Perspective of University Tutors

Abstract

The research engaged university tutor teachers in focus groups to under-stand what role they give to the school-museum relationship in initial student-teachers’ traineeship, through reflection on their representations and practices. It follows an initial exploratory phase that investigated, through the administration of questionnaires, the use of digital contents prepared by museums during the pandemic within the traineeships of Primary Education Sciences at the University of Milan Bicocca, which showed a mostly occa-sional use and little dialogue with the museums’ educational services. From the analysis of the focus groups, carried out according to the constructivist approach of Grounded Theory, firstly came out several ideas of museum and relationships with the school, then the learning outcomes that tutors pursue through the dialogue with the museum in their classes, the strengths and weaknesses of this relationship encountered in their professional experience. Finally, they imagined how to promote a habit of dialoguing with museums in the traineeship paths, and some proposals emerged, especially concerning sharing of experiences.