The public education provided by museums has been the primary concern of museology of the last three decades, and therefore remains the ideal outcome of museum engagement, despite being branded patronising and \u2018Victorian\u2019 by some (Ashley 2007, p.489). It has motivated both proposed changes to their practice and the backlash against them.<\/p>\n
Hooper-Greenhill\u2019s (1994, pp.2, 6, 33, 140), Hein\u2019s (1998, p.165) and Ambrose and Paine\u2019s (2018, p.33) recommendations that museums appeal to \u2018all the senses\u2019 and become more interactive and entertaining was driven not only by a need to compete with the burgeoning leisure industry, but because contemporary education theory suggested that allowing audiences to engage with collections in as many different ways as possible would increase the chance that people with a range of different learning styles would learn something new. Comfort is advocated, not in the sense of visitors avoiding disturbing and upsetting historical and social facts, but physical comfort, so that they can focus on learning. Equally, the response was driven by concerns that the truth and learning were taking a backseat in favour of entertainment and stimulation that was sensory rather than intellectual, and that \u2018quiet contemplation\u2019, which, by confronting visitors with an alien past, expands capacities to understand differing ways of living and being in the world, was being forgotten (Appleton 2007, pp.122, 124; Buckley 2005, p.43; Griffiths 2006, p.223; Hein 2016, p.130; Kavanagh 2000, pp.174-175).<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s debates around visitor diversity and decolonising museum collections are the same. Hosting cake decoration at the V&A, an activity not strictly related to their collections, was controversial, but designed to attract black British working-class women, commonly underrepresented amongst visitors, to the museum. This was not to forcibly or subliminally impress a set of \u2018normative\u2019 values on them through exposure to the museum environment, as museums have been accused of doing in the past, but encourage them to contribute to black representation in collections and exhibits in order to better inform other visitors about such cultures, which they ultimately did (Nightingale 2006, p.86; Selwood 2018, p.227).<\/p>\n
Perceptions that museums are not education-focussed originate from differing understandings of the term. The sample group interviewed in Public perceptions of \u2013 and attitudes to \u2013 the purposes of museums in society<\/em>, regarded \u2018education\u2019 as for children: adults \u2018learn\u2019 and use \u2018sources of information\u2019 (Museums Association 2013b, p.4). This would also explain curators\u2019 often disrespectful attitude towards education departments (Woollard 2006, p.214). The sample group\u2019s wariness of being \u2018lectured to\u2019 and belief that museums should be \u2018neutral\u2019 suggests that \u2018education\u2019 is also associated with indoctrination (Museums Association 2013b, pp.4, 6). For this reason, the term \u2018access\u2019 is frequently used in place of \u2018education\u2019. However, \u2018access\u2019 lacks \u2018education\u2019\u2019s sense of purpose. The term needs rehabilitation to mean something that equips people to come up with their own solutions to \u2018contemporary issues\u2019 (Museums Association 2019a, p.6).<\/p>\n Current debates on diversity and decolonisation focus on doing just this. Ashby\u2019s (2020) concern about the attribution of the \u2018discovery\u2019 of species to European biologists rather than their indigenous assistants comes from a desire to tell the \u2018whole story\u2019 behind collections, as do ICOM members\u2019 calls to define museums as \u2018polyphonic\u2019 and democratising\u2019. Objects reflecting historic prejudices have been included in exhibitions to present the past honestly and so that discrimination today can be recognised and acted on, but not without anxieties that their display might promote the stereotypes they present (Simpson 2001, p.43; Witcomb 2007, p.154). Woldeyes\u2019 (2020) argument for the repatriation of Ethiopian manuscripts revolves around the fact that their educational value to their originating community outweighs their educational value to British citizens. Museums remain focussed on education.<\/p>\n Recent audience consultations suggest that this kind of education overlaps with visitors\u2019 desires and expectations while in a museum. Dierking and Falk (2000, p.2) identified learning as their primary goal, the Museums Association public consultation that \u2018creating knowledge, for and about society\u2019 was the third most essential purpose of a museum behind \u2018care and preservation of heritage\u2019 and \u2018holding collections and mounting displays\u2019 (2013b, p.4). Tooby (2006, p.141) shows that audiences have specific \u2018learning goals\u2019 they anticipate achieving from museum trips. Multiple sources suggest that the public value museums specifically for being reliable sources of information, deeming other sources such as public news outlets and the internet untrustworthy or \u2018biased\u2019 by comparison (Ambrose and Paine 2018, p.157; Heywood 2009; Museums Association 2013a, p.10).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n