An Empathy-Building Toolkit for Museums (American Alliance of Museums)

Museums as informal learning platforms that reflect the subjects, themes, and contexts representing all aspects of life, have a unique advantage and a responsibility to contribute to empathy-building in our world by offering opportunities for experiential learning of empathy as a portal to a deep understanding of our interconnected and interdependent existence. Within this context, empathy is defined as a form of perception, enabling us to connect with ourselves and others through a cultivation of self-knowledge. This is key to take sustainable actions towards major global challenges our world is facing, such as fragmentation, othering, as well as social and environmental injustices. An Empathy-Building Toolkit for Museums will offer a rich variety of practical and multidisciplinary solutions to empathy-building with potential for adaptation, implementation, and scaling through a variety of museums, and other informal learning platforms, that aspire to become incubators of empathy in their respective sectors, institutions, systems, and communities. Whether museum visitors are engaging with art, religious objects, or animals, cultural heritage professionals can use the strategies outlined in this book to foster empathy and reflection, making museums a more transformative and enlightening experience.