A ubiquitous, but under-researched, phenomenon, non-formal learning represents all learning that does not fall under the heading of ‘formal’ that is to say that it is not an organised event or package; bound by a prescribed framework; marked by the presence of a designated teacher; or result in the award of a qualification. This research primarily aimed to investigate how non-formal learning takes place in museums and galleries: specifically exploring the differences and characteristics of non-formal learning between different groups of people. As well as an extensive literature review which draws together theoretical approaches from a wide range of fields/disciplines, the thesis outlines the development of a methodological tool entitled ‘The Dual Model’ which is a combination of models of skill acquisition and cultural capital. This model represents a new approach to the investigation of non-formal learning and this thesis explores its direct implementation as an evaluative tool. Implicit learning (a form of learning which is unconscious, either whilst it is taking place or in terms of the knowledge subsequently created) represents a focal point for the research. By scrutinising contradictions in visitors’ accounts of their museums visits, possible cases of implicit learning in context are identified and evaluated; a unique contribution to an understanding of how people learn non-formally without being aware of doing so. The research confirms a typology of non-formal learning which differentiates between explicit and implicit components and also provides evidence that there are identifiably different sets of characteristics which individuals might exhibit based upon their cultural capital, their relationship with the art field and their level of skill acquisition.

As digital technologies increasingly shape the way we work, play and learn, museums are faced with the challenge of strategically responding to the demands of digital culture. This thesis argues that small, digitally conservative qll.lseums risk being left behind if they do not tackle this challenge. While there is a large body of literature on museums and digital technologies, little has been written on developing the foundations that support digital practice in museums. As such the focus of this thesis is on those museums taking their first digital steps, opening a Twitter account, or thinking about creating a new job role, with a mainly digital remit. Furthermore this thesis questions the role of museum studies as an academic discipline in supporting the development and implementation of digital technologies and emerging practices within small museums. Taking the museum sector in Northern Ireland as a context specific scope this investigation proposes a model of museum studies as critical praxis, and firstly defines barriers to digital practice within the museum sector in Northern Ireland and secondly designs practice based responses to disrupt these barriers, namely: skills, confidence and a risk adverse culture. Through critical praxis this investigation proposes context specific models for digital skills development, research and development, and digital literacy training for emerging museum professionals. Taking a methodologically inventive approach, practice based research (the development and implementation of events, training and site specific research and development prototypes), audits of policy and practice, and email interviews are used to form a "mixed methods approach within this research. This thesis demonstrates that skills and confidence are more important than funding and access to technology when it comes to developing a more progressive approach to digital practice in small, digitally conservative museums.

This research examines the use of scenography in museum design and investigates how scenography can impact on visitors’ value of experience. This research contributes to existing knowledge on visitors’ experiences, museum design and the relationship between them, and aims to inspire new thinking on the potential of scenography to enhance visitors’ value of experiences. With ever increasing and improving competition for the public’s free time museums are more widely recognised as part of the leisure industry. To remain culturally relevant and financially sustainable museums have had to develop a more profound understanding of not only who their audiences are, but what users require from their experiences, and how they can offer this. Taking influence from the service industry, this research focuses on the visitor as investor and uses the concept of ‘value of experience’ to examine what people seek when visiting museums. The study began by reviewing the use of scenography in theatrical performance and considering if this aligns with the role of museums. I analyse existing examples of scenography in museum design and reflect on personal experience to consider the impact of these on visitors. Summarising literature into visitors’ experiences, I recognise six types of value that are most commonly sought or recognised by museum visitors. These six values are presented in the ‘visitors’ value of museum experience groupings’, an original system developed for the purpose of this research. The visitors’ value of museum experience groupings were tested then used as a framework to review the impact of scenography in museum design. Triangulating data collected from field visits to museum, interviews with museum staff, and consultations with museum visitors I use the value groupings as a guide to investigate the impact of scenography in museum design on their visitors’ value of experience. The research demonstrates that there is an ever increasing use of scenographic components in museum designs and reviews the ways in which these can be applied to support some of the core aims and objectives of museums. Though the impact of scenography can be mutually beneficial for visitor and museum, there are fundamental differences in museums and theatres which mean some principles of scenography cannot be easily transferred to museum spaces. The museum frame is unlike the theatrical frame. Theatres enjoy an artistic licence with which they can choose to be illusionary, exaggerated and deceptive. The theatrical frame sets expectations and behaviours which encourages audiences to suspend their disbelief and engage in personal meaning making. Meanwhile, museums are trusted as places of accuracy, perceived as places of unique learning, and celebrated for being the carers of authentic collections. Considering these factors, the ability or willingness of museum visitors to overlook limitations and read design on a symbolic level is unclear. Though scenography may be able to support museums in offering a range of values, the most unique and fundamental characteristics of museums must be respected and celebrated if they wish to maintain a competitive edge within today’s competitive leisure industry.

The dawning of a new Millennium has encouraged global debate and reflection upon the significance of our past, our present and our future. This period of self-reflection has also coincided with intense uncertainty and reflection within museums, as new technologies and changing approaches towards history and the past have raised profound questions about the very identity and even existence of museums. This thesis explores some of these themes and presents a variety of empirical data on both the construction and reception of museum exhibitions. Underpined by wider theoretical debates about the cultural transmission of ideology, the first part of the thesis draws upon 49 exploratory interviews with a variety of museum staff to unpack the processes determining both the choice of appropriate exhibition topics and the inclusion or exclusion of particular artifacts and perspectives. I argue that a number of developments - such as the growing dominance of commercialism - are impacting upon the treatment of the past by museums in a number of significant and sometimes disturbing ways. The second part of the thesis presents my findings from 200 semi-structured interviews with visitors, which attempted to explore the nature of audience reception within museums. The analysis of this data suggests that, in contrast to the views of some museum professionals and academics, many museum visitors are highly active and discerning in their interpretation of exhibitions and can sometimes be acutely aware that they are witnessing a highly selective presentation of the past. The practical implications of these findings for the work of museums are also drawn out. The third and final part of this thesis draws together these empirical findings to consider their wider implications for the future of museums. I conclude by suggesting that, as we enter the new Millennium, museums and their work seem set to undergo radical change. The future of our past is never likely to be the same again.

This thesis investigates the impacts that the open air museum in Luxor may have on the residents of city. Although the open air museum project has involved a development framework for the city in different sectors and some social benefits, the implementation and the procedures that were used have largely be unsuccessful and have not met the social needs for residents, which has created tensions between the local people of the city and the Egyptian government. Further, the Egyptian revolution in 25th January in 2011 affected the process of the open air museum project which is reflected again on the residents’ way dealing with the Egyptian government in seeking to achieve their needs. The study adopts a mixed method approach qualitative and quantitative to understanding the impacts of this museum project on the social aspects of the city. The qualitative methodology was represented by semi-structured interviews to cover the many aspects of the open-air museum’s plan. The quantitative methodology was based on the secondary data and geographic information systems analyses, where 3D visualisation and visibility analysis were used to show how the face of the city changed between 2004 and 2012 through a sequence of open-air museum strategies. It can be concluded that the open air museum in Luxor has failed to achieve its aim to improve the social life of the areas surrounding the open-air museum. Therefore on balance, the construction strategies of the open-air museum have produced a negative social impact. The thesis makes a contribution to the context of the Luxor Open Air Museum, that has a firm geographic identity, through showing how this it effects the city structure and its social arena.

This thesis is the result of an international comparative study of the formation of the professional associations of museum workers in Britain and Japan. Museums associations were part of the infrastructure that contributed to the development of museums, including the professionalisation of museum workers. Comparative study reveals the unique characteristics of each organisation and how its structure, management, objectives and achievements differ as a result. In Britain, the Museums Association was formed at York in 1889. It is the oldest museum association in the world. The Museum Work Promotion Association, the predecessor of the Japanese Association of Museums, was established at Tokyo in 1928. The Association was modelled on preceding foreign museums associations, including the British one. The formative processes of these two associations capture the intentions and scope of these organisations, characteristics which become a legacy for the future. The formation processes of organisations can be described as interactions between diverse actors. The intentions of the individuals who led the associational movements greatly influenced these processes, and the characteristics of the associations that were produced particularly reflected these. The occupational careers of the founding members of each association were directly related to their motivations in supporting the associational movement. By focusing on the differences between the careers of these individuals in Britain and Japan, this thesis explores the features of the historical trajectory of each association. In the conclusion, the thesis elucidates what the differences between these Associations and their histories might mean. The unique history of an association can represent the characteristics of museum history across a country more broadly. Therefore, it can provide an illuminating perspective on the dynamism of museum history.

The thesis contends that museums are inevitably bound up with a powerful heteronormative frame and specifically explores promising interpretive strategies that have sought to interweave sexual minorities’ stories into mainstream museum narratives and disrupt long-standing heteronormative narratives and practices. Informed by a selection of literature from the fields of museum, cultural and sociological studies, it draws upon broader debates within the profession concerning the social roles and responsibilities of museums with reference to disadvantaged communities and their cultural representation. In order to investigate the potential for museums to subvert heteronormative ways of seeing through reformist exhibitionary strategies, I explore the process of development (primarily) and reception (secondarily) of two projects: Hitched, Wedding Clothes and Customs at Sudley House in Liverpool and Queering the Museum at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Both exhibitions were appreciated as unconventional examples of museum practice, featuring, respectively, a subtle -thematic and spatial- integration of sexual minorities among regular exhibits. In line with other researches, the empirical findings of this research respond to the insufficiency of museum literature in critically reviewing a specific set of curatorial methodologies intending to reveal the benefits of a more subtle and inclusive museum practice when previously disparaged groups are portrayed. The thesis concludes with the need for museums to research and employ a range of innovative interpretive devices for exhibiting references to gender, sexual, and other kinds of, difference, refraining from a constant repetition of stand-alone exhibitions. The adoption of a diverse curatorship of difference seems to be the only way for a fairer inclusion of a minority’s plurality, and consequently, for practically rejecting restricting fixed understandings of gender, sexual and other types of identity. And, as I argue, embedded exhibits among regular collections are a very promising curatorial method to communicate this plurality to the widest possible audience.

This thesis has two aims of equal importance: firstly to reveal the fine details of the typical experiences of young children visiting a museum; secondly to find a method of accessing these experiences in such a way as to prioritise the children’s own perspectives, and to do so with a light touch, in order to minimise the impact on the visits. The research focuses on the experiences of 32 children, aged four and five years old, in their family visits to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Drawing on the field of Childhood Studies, the project contrasts the effectiveness of several research methods for their potential use with young children in this setting, including children’s drawings and tours. The final method involved using children’s digital photographs of their visit as prompts for photo-elicitation interviews, thus providing both visual and verbal expressions of their experience. The major contribution of this thesis to museum visitor studies is its development and description of a highly effective, minimally-invasive method that richly documents children’s experiences during the time of their museum visit using their own words and images. The research adds to a small but growing field of study about young children’s museum experiences with the addition of a detailed case study from a British natural history museum. Findings reveal children’s navigations of the social and physical setting, their responses to different types of museum object and modes of exhibit display, and the highly varied ways in which they make sense of the things that they encounter in the museum. The thesis thus argues for a move away from a solely learning-focused view of young children in museums to one that sees them as visitors in their own right, who value many different aspects of their museum visits.

Vikings: a term so well known that it instantaneously evokes an image of bloodthirsty warriors, weapons, hoards, burning monasteries and heroic battles. Despite growing academic knowledge about the limitations of this stereotype of Vikings, it is nevertheless strongly rooted within popular culture. How can visitors to museums help us to understand the role of Vikings in constructing, maintaining and modifying collective, national and personal identities? This research explores the image of Vikings in English and Icelandic society and in two museums, Víkingaheimar in Reykjanesbær, Iceland and Yorkshire Museum in Yorkshire, England. The aim of this thesis is analyse visitor responses to museum representations of the Vikings. Its findings demonstrate the role of collective memory in the meaning creation process within museums and the use of the Viking stereotype as a trope in order to construct collective, national and individual identities. Furthermore, by exploring individual responses to history, the research advances understanding of the impact within modern society of the Viking image and its representation within museums. It also shows how history, in particular, history beyond living memory, is used in order to make sense of present social issues. Fieldwork conducted at Víkingaheimar and Yorkshire Museum is analysed using theories on historical distancing, collective social memory, nationalism, otherness and representation within museums. These theories are discussed in relation to identity formation and collective memory to examine the role and influences of the Vikings and their age upon modern Icelandic and English society. The results show that participants in the study used the collective social past in order to rationalise present social issues and events. This enabled a positive interpretation and fluid formations of their various identities within the museum exhibition. Additionally, participants made the past more personal by reflecting on their own identity through history. Participants in this study are shown to interpret the past based upon collective memory, ignoring the museum’s historical exhibition narrative in favour of their pre-existing ideas on history.

This thesis deals with museum experiences and how they are continuously negotiated between the museum and its users and between the users themselves. Centred on one case study, Statens Museum for Kunst (The National Gallery of Denmark), it asks: How does Statens Museum for Kunst understand and progress the experience of adult visitors in the permanent galleries and how does this relate to actual visitor experiences? Throughout the thesis, the history of the Museum and its conceptual framework are revealed, discussed and compared to the user experiences that take place. This provides insight into the complex relations between users, artworks and the museum space. The thesis investigates five historic scripts at Statens Museum for Kunst in order to understand the rationale on which the Museum was founded and the current script developed. These scripts are compared to the results of detailed empirical studies, which reveal how users together form a highly personal and exploratory script. It is concluded that museum experiences at SMK have an inherent social dimension, which has fundamental impact on how the aesthetic experience and the development of the self take place in the galleries. Via bodily conduct and diverse conversations, users establish a unique experience in which they negotiate and shape the aesthetic experience together. This, the research demonstrates, is done through a re-framing of traditional aesthetic categories and a new type of self-formation. Thereby a discrepancy between the museum script and the users’ performance is detected: where the museum script mainly embraces knowledge, intention, structure and solitary contemplation, many users practise curiosity, spontaneous attraction and social negotiating. Thus, the Museum develops a script for ‘Bildung’ in which the enlightenment and education of users are in focus. However, the users themselves are engaged in a self-formation process where personal responses to art and dialogue with one another stand as the overall purpose of the museum experience.