Museum Educators Perspective of Failure: A Collective Frame Analysis

Museums offer a unique role and safe space in shaping how youth view and react to experiences with failure. The purpose of this study was to add to the conversation around failure in out-of-school learning, particularly from the perspective of educators within museum settings that implement STEAM-related making exhibits, workshops, and/or camps for youth. We analyzed approximately 9 h of video data from two sources: video recordings of virtual group meetings with 14 museum educators from six partnering institutions, and video recordings from five of the individual partnering sites discussing failure as a concept within their organization and programming. In this article, we demonstrate how the framings of failure by museum educators are bounded, and transformed, by un/seen external forces that ultimately impact the professional practices of educators in their organizations. We contend that the significance of this study lies in how perspectives around failure are produced and how they influence educators' professional practice, specifically in how failure is framed and communicated within STEAM-related learning opportunities in museum settings.