Science museums can be a rich learning context, where visitors engage with scientific practices with few formal requirements. However, science museums can be experienced as not welcoming to migrant families due to social, economic, and cultural barriers. In this study, we asked what language-related challenges migrant families experienced in Dutch science museums and what recommendations they had for linguistic inclusion. We interviewed twelve families of Turkish, Moroccan, or Syrian backgrounds after their visit to a Dutch science museum. We discovered that (1) first-generation families found the predominance of Dutch in the museum challenging, (2) the science language used in the museum brought on additional challenges, and (3) the families saw potential emotional benefits to the presence of their mother tongue in the museum, albeit expressing a need for Dutch to remain at the center of the linguistic landscape in the museum. These findings show that language plays a role in migrant families’ experiences in science museums. The findings invite science museums to engage in a dialogue with migrant communities about their needs when it comes to more inclusive museum experiences.
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This publication gives an account of the Public Annotation of Cultural Heritage research project (PACE) conducted at the Crossmedialab. The project was carried out between 1 January 2008 and 31 December 2009, and was funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science. Three members of the Dutch Association of Science Centres (Vereniging Science Centra) actively participated in the execution of the project: the Utrecht University Museum, the National Museum of Natural History (Naturalis), and Museon. In addition, two more knowledge institutes participated: Novay and the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences. BMC Consultancy and Manage¬ment also took part in the project. This broad consortium has enabled us to base the project on both knowledge and experience from a practical and scientific perspective. The purpose of the PACE project was to examine the ways in which social tagging could be deployed as a tool to enrich collections, improve their acces¬sibility and to increase visitor group involvement. The museums’ guiding question for the project was: ‘When is it useful to deploy social tagging as a tool for the benefit of museums and what kind of effect can be expected from such deployment?’ For the Crossmedialab the PACE project presented a unique opportunity to conduct concrete research into the highly interesting phenomenon of social tagging with parties and experts in the field.
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This introductory chapter contextualises and reflects critically on theemerging trends characterising the evolving social role advocated by museums insociety, with an emphasis on museum experiences as vehicles for change or trans-formation. It looks at transformation by adopting a systemic perspective, anchoredin the transformative potential of the experiences that museums offer to visitors, andthen zooming out to turn attention towards the way recent changes in the socio-political and cultural context reverberated in structural and functional changes insidethe museum and connected institutions and communities. The chapter is structuredalong a series of questions, starting by unpacking a rationale for transformativeexperiences and why they are worthy of attention at this particular moment (Why),then focusing on what we mean by transformative experiences in the context ofmuseums (What), on particularities of design approaches and supporting technolo-gies for crafting transformative experiences (How), and closing with reflections onthe meaning and significance of it all, for the museum, the visitor, diverse audiencegroups and society as a whole (For whom and For what). The final part of the Intro-duction then reviews these themes once again, narrating how they are woven in thebook narrative.
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Many visitor studies make social background variables the central point of departure to explain participation patterns. How the past is 'staged', however, also has an influence on those to whom it appeals. This relational perspective calls for new conceptual tools to grasp empirical reality. Inspired by the historical philosophy of Georg Simmel and the literary theory of Mikhail Bakhtin a number of concepts which enable us to grasp the subtle relationship between museum presentations and visitors are presented. Bakhtin's notion of chronotopy serves as a key concept. By linking museum presentations and visitor perceptions with each other, it is also possible to identify certain tendencies within the contemporary museum landscape.
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The online presence of organizations is long gone from being just a web page. Social media have enabled easy and inexpensive interaction between millions of individuals and communities. This has not gone unnoticed by cultural heritage institutes. The question is what all these social media activities bring. Even if an institute knows what it tries to achieve online, the metrics often consist of confusing accumulation of statistics, across several systems and reveal little about online user behaviour, engagement and satisfaction. In the research project Museum Compass a prototype of a social media monitor is developed, which will contain data of current and historic online activities on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare and Flickr of all registered Dutch museums. The first version of this monitor has been developed, and we believe that this is a good moment to discuss – mostly in a practical sense – our general approach and preliminary results.
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Abstract Background Although family photos are often used in the psychosocial care for people with dementia, little is known about the use and efectiveness of generic photos. This systematic literature review explored psychosocial interventions using generic photos for people with dementia, and the efects they have on their social interaction and/or mood and/or quality of life. In addition, it was investigated whether these interventions made use of technol‑ ogy in its implementation. Methods A systematic search on the following databases was performed: PubMed, Embase, APA PsychInfo, Cinahl, Web of Science, Scopus and Cochrane Central. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were based on the PICO model (Popu‑ lation, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome), and quality assessment was undertaken using the Weight of Evidence Framework. Narrative synthesis was undertaken to summarize study characteristics- settings and designs, type of psy‑ chosocial interventions identifed, type of photos and technology used, outcome measures, and results. Results A total of 2,035 results were found, however after title, abstract and full-text screening, a total of 8 studies were included. The most common psychosocial intervention using generic photos was found to be reminiscence therapy, followed by art-viewing activities. In studies that used technology, it was reported that viewing digitalized photos were either similar or better to conventional printed photos. Despite photos being generic, it was found that generic photos could still hold personal signifcance to the person with dementia. Some positive and signifcant efects were found for the outcomes social interaction, mood and quality of life, though no study evaluated all three outcomes. Two studies were rated as having high overall quality, 4 were rated as fair, and 2 studies had a low quality assessment rating. Conclusion Studies found using generic photos were limited, showing varying outcomes and methodological quality. Firm conclusions on the efectiveness of interventions using generic photos are not possible. However, the use of generic photos in psychosocial interventions is a promising area for future research. Researchers should consider studies with better methodological quality and larger samples; and qualitative studies where the intention is to get better insight into successful implementation and impact mechanisms of such psychosocial interventions.
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Can you remember the last time the ground gave way beneath you? When you thought the ground was stable, but for some reason it wasn’t? Perhaps you encountered a pothole on the streets of Amsterdam, or you were renovating your house and broke through the floor. Perhaps there was a molehill in a park or garden. You probably had to hold on to something to steady yourself. Perhaps you even slipped or fell. While I sincerely hope that nobody here was hurt in the process, I would like you to keep that feeling in your mind when reading what follows. It is the central theme of the words that will follow. The ground beneath our feet today is not as stable as the streets of Amsterdam, your park around the corner or even a poorly renovated upstairs bedroom. This is because whatever devices we use and whatever pathways we choose, we all live in hybrid physical and digital social spaces (Kitchin and Dodge 2011). Digital social spaces can be social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook, but also chat apps like WhatsApp or Signal. Crucially, social spaces are increasingly hybrid, in which conversations take place across digital spaces (WhatsApp chat group) and physical spaces (meeting friends in a cafe) simultaneously. The ground beneath our feet is not made of concrete or stone or wood but of bits and bytes.
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This research concerning the experience and future of zoos was carried out from 2011-2012 and takes regional ideas concerning Zoo Emmen as well as global visions into account. The research focuses partly on Zoo Emmen, its present attractions and visitors while also comparing and contrasting visions on the future in relationship to other international zoos in the world. In this way, remarkable experiences and ideas will be identified and in the light of them, it can serve as inspiration for stakeholders of zoos at large. The main research subject is a look at the future zoos in view of: The Zoo Experience – an international experience benchmark; The Zoo of the Future – a Scenario Planning approach towards the future; The virtual zoo - zoo’s in the internet domain.
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On the internet we see a continuously growing generation of web applications enabling anyone to create and publish online content in a simple way, to link content and to share it with others: wellknown instances include MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia and Google Earth. The internet has become a social software platform sailing under the Web 2.0 flag, creating revolutionary changes along the way: the individual, the end-user, comes first and can benefit optimally from an environment which has the following keywords: radically user-oriented, decentralized, collective and massive. ‘An environment in which each participant not only listens, but can also make his own voice heard’: the Social Web. This document describes a brief exploration of this Social Web and intends to gain insight in possible fundamental changes this phenomenon is causing or might cause in our society. Particular attention will be paid to the impact of the Social Web on learning and education. For how do two apparently contrary developments touch and overlap? On the one side we have the rapid growth of technologies bringing individuals together to communicate, collaborate, have fun and acquire knowledge (social software). And on the other hand we have the just conviction within the world of education that young people should not only acquire knowledge and information, but should also have all kinds of skills and experience in order to meet social and technological changes deliberately, and prepare for a life long of learning.
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Een neerslag van het onderzoek dat is gedaan door de leden van de onderzoeksgroep die verbonden is aan het lectoraat Creative Industries and Social Innovation
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