The use at school of the cultural heritage in Social Sciences and the contribution of the digital aspects: several research lines in Quebec

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to offer a perspective on research carried out in Québec since the last seven years on the school use of cultural heritage and digital media or resources in collaboration, for the most part, with cultural organizations, including galleries, libraries, archives and museums from different disciplinary fields. Works done by the author of this article and some of her colleagues are presented. The author's interest in educational intervention in the field of social sciences, and sometimes in the arts, has materialized through the collaborative development of cultural mediation devices that often involve digital platforms. The willingness of a growing number of heritage and cultural institutions to consider such integration to their cultural mediation practices (Goldman, 2011; SMQ, 2011) prompted the author to undertake some research-development (or "research and investigation") (Van Der Maren, 1996) of a collaborative nature. Thus, teachers and museum or cultural actors are part of the collaborators, in the context of association with institutions such as the Museum of Fine Arts of Montréal, the McCord Museum, the Boréalis Museum, the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, and Télé-Québec. The general objective remains to establish links between culture and education, and thus contribute to update the essentially cultural mission of the school, using the resources of cultural organizations.