Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2001. / Adviser: Andrew McClellan. Submitted to the Dept. of Interdisciplinary Studies. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 492-531). Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Illinois State University, 1988. / Title from title page screen, viewed September 2, 2005. Dissertation Committee: Jack Hobbs (chair), Susan Amster, John McCarthy, William Talone. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 99-103) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 42-45).

Thesis (Ph.D) -- University of Western Sydney, Nepean. / Related works: Leading with passion: change management on the 21st century museum. Includes bibliographical references.

This research study examined the perceptions of school administrators and of historic site directors toward the function of the sites in the public school curriculum. In-depth, personal interviews were conducted, tape-recorded, and transcribed at six selected sites, representing the various ethnic historic settlements of Texas, a variety of population densities, each of the major physical geographic regions, and different economic levels in the state. Data analysis involved careful study of the taped interviews, comparisons of responses given by people of similar roles, and comparisons of responses regarding the same site. Documentation of elements of the historic sites, of programs offered, of participation of the local school district in programs, and of written school policies were examined. The perceptions of the interviewees along with recommendations for changes were noted. Responses varied from expressed impression of students who are steeped in local history and are bored with their heritage, to enthusiastic positive opinions that the prosperity of the community is directly related to the strong identification of the citizens with its local history. The role of local history and of specific sites in the curriculum of the public schools is not consistent in Texas. This research study suggests that positive gains are possible if communication between local historic site/park/museum personnel and professional educators who are responsible for planning and implementation of school curriculum can be improved. Professional educators tend either to value local history and historic sites as part of the curriculum, or to avoid the question of meeting state mandates for classtime through the use of off-campus visits to historic sites by interpreting recent reforms to prohibit them. Professional personnel who oversee the historic sites tend to offer programs to the public schools that will meet the mandated curriculum, while adhering to the scheduling constraints of school reform legislation.

Museums are important for maintaining trust and tolerance in society and their importance has in-creased as more and more people visit museums. Twenty-five million visits were made to museums in Sweden in 2014. The issue of creative idea generation in terms of exhibition projects is central to the museum's impact and success, and to its relevance to an increasingly complex audience. In order to download their collections with new content and stories, museums have to develop their vision of creative idea generation and be better at taking a creative approach to the exhibition topic. This is difficult because museums have an inherent resistance to change because they are controlled by their institutions, here in the sense of self-imposed rules, conventions and traditions of how something is done. Within institutional theory, one uses the term Path Dependency. There are constant negotiations within institutions between the different roles with varying strong or weak ne-gotiating positions. Museum directors have strong negotiating positions and are therefore key play-ers in the creation of exhibitions. By illustrating how museum directors perceive their role in relation to exhibits, it is possible to change the institutions. Qualitative semi-structured interviews have thus been conducted with all five museum directors who have been or are active in the Swedish National Maritime Museums in the period 2004-2013. The investigation has shown that the organization and the director general at an overall level estab-lish the framework for museum directors' ability to exercise their role and their negotiating position. One result is that museum directors have strong negotiating positions in certain distinct areas, but that there are also areas that are unclear to them, which prevents them from fully exploiting their negotiation position. One such area is the commissioning of exhibitions, especially in relation to the artistic creative processes and design. The conclusion from the result is that the commissioner’s role must be defined much more clearly. Another important conclusion is that museum directors must approach the question of what creative idea generation is and how it works.