Learning from Multicultural Amman: Engaging Jordan's Youth

Communities and especially the younger generation in Jordan are poorly engaged with their multicultural heritage, both in formal education and at touristic heritage sites and museums which do much for the Jordanian economy but little for its social development.

Our project is designed to tackle this challenge, by training museum staff, teachers and university lecturers to take advantage of the rich educational resources of Jordanian museums, and to consequently create better opportunities for their pupils and students to value Jordan's rich past.

Some key principles underpin our mission: undertaking our research in a rigorous, critical and ethical manner; working with the past for the benefit of present-day and future generations of Jordanians; celebrating the multicultural heritage of Jordan's diverse communities; highlighting the educational value of museums and their collections; identifying, sharing and adapting best professional practice for the Jordanian museum and education sectors; creating and working in new partnerships that connect not only some of the best scholars and heritage professionals in the UK and Jordan, but also museums, schools and universities, for mutual benefit; and persuading influential policy makers that, by adopting these transformative principles, museums and their users can make a positive and lasting difference to Jordan's economy, culture and society.

We do not yet have all the answers. Despite over 40 years of academic and professional research and debate over community engagement in heritage globally, we still need to understand much more about the Jordanian museum situation, including the professional and social barriers to fully exploiting their educational potential. We also need to find out - by systematically asking and listening to people in the heritage and education sectors - what developmental changes might work best in the Jordanian context. We are certain that high quality training of our collaborating museum staff and educators will make a difference. But we also want to experiment as a team with new ways of teaching and learning in museums, to figure out what approaches work best, both for teachers and for young learners. Ultimately, we want to pass on what we have learnt to other stakeholders, ranging from decision makers in Jordan to scholars and museum professionals globally.

This project is fundamentally about working with partners, stakeholders and decision-makers to achieve a step change in educational provision in Jordanian museums, particularly for the benefit of young people from diverse cultural backgrounds.
Our consortium and project have come together from foundations in existing relationships; galvanised by the AHRC-funded scoping workshop and then through a pre-project meeting with partners in Jordan funded by Durham University. Throughout this development phase our consortium participants have unanimously agreed the pressing need for, and beneficial impact of, this work within the Jordanian museum and education sectors.
The impact of this project on participating Jordanian school children and their teachers should be considerable. Learning through active engagement in the museum activities developed as part of this project should provide an interesting, enjoyable and memorable eye-opener for children and teachers into how just how rewarding it can be to learn about one's past. On returning home, children are likely to share their positive experiences with their families, and to request repeat visits to the museums they have visited. Such impact could also remain until adulthood, establishing a vital new set of allies in the protection of Jordan's cultural heritage, as threats to it from urban development and agricultural intensification continue grow. The impact on the teachers is also likely to be positive and profound - exposing them to the various learning opportunities provided in museums and their collections, to how children can benefit from museum visits, and to how museum collections and displays can be linked back to the national curriculum and ongoing educational process.
Jordanian museum staff, through training and practice as part of the project, will enjoy a rare opportunity to upgrade their knowledge and skills and to see the full educational potential of their own institutions. Both the AMJ and the Jordan Museum will benefit from interacting with museum learning staff from the UK. The collaboration between Jordanian museums in this project also has the potential to create new professional networks of mutual support and guidance.
The Durham University Museums learning team will also gain from their exposure to museum practice and professionals working in a different national and cultural context, learn from success stories that can be translated into good practice back home, and add to their developing portfolio of international collaboration. Moreover, the links between Durham University's nationally designated Oriental Museum collection and collections held in Jordanian museums will create opportunities for future collaborative activities that benefit staff, students and visitors, such as the loan of objects for exhibitions and staff and student exchanges.
The Museum Directorate at the Department of Antiquities is already working on renovating some museums and recruiting new staff. This project provides a perfect opportunity to build on the work they are doing, and by maintaining our museum training programme the MD will be able to sustain professional development on an annual basis, and extend the benefits of our project to staff in other museums.
Our project should also provide a positive impact on participating Jordanian universities. In addition to learning from their participation in our activities, they will be encouraged to introduce a museum placement module as part of heritage/museums degree programmes. Furthermore, an MoU between the DoA and the Ministry of Higher Education could establish a network of museums and heritage organisations that would provide internships for students to gain new knowledge and skills through contributing their much-needed input to ongoing museum projects. It would also help match graduate skills to museum jobs and establish a local pool of human resources to be recruited into the museums and heritage sector.