Stimulated visits and empowerment: for a less exclusive museum
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18472/cvt.18n1.2018.1488Keywords:
Visita Estimulada, Museu de Ciência e Tecnologia, Empoderamento.Abstract
This study discusses the perceptions that the public of stimulated visits, from communities with low purchasing power and/or low cultural capital, develop from visiting a science and technology museum. Also described is their socio-demographic, cultural, and economic profile. The concepts of social inclusion, experience, and empowerment are taken as a reference, as well as a typology of museum publics involving the aspect of the sociocultural autonomy of the individual in relation to the event they are exposed to. The instrument was a self-administered questionnaire completed by 1258 visitors, containing questions about profile and attitudinal parameters of interest and motivation, related to the concept of empowerment. It is concluded that empowerment occurs through the association between perceptions of cognitive gains and their applicability to visitors’ social world at the level of their personal relations and their relations with more external social spheres. The actions of social inclusion in museums need to be materialized as an institutional policy.