ABSTRACT
This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part deals with the premise that people experience the world through their bodies and these bodies are inseparable from the place in which they are located. Places are not fixed but are constantly changing and in flux. An understanding of the museum as a physical, material, conceptual place should be an important starting point for considering the experience of children in museums. As a uniquely different kind of space, museums offer uniquely different forms of experience, thought, action. In museums studies research, how visitors experience the physical spaces in museums has received much less attention compared with how visitors understand concepts and make meanings in exhibitions. Similarly, research and practice regarding children in museums often seems to start with words, concepts and social interactions, which, whilst important, have a tendency to imagine space only as a passive backdrop to human-led action.
