Antwerp’s museums response to super diversity. A study of multiperspective cultural education for secondary school students: learning revisited

Abstract

ABSTRACT The recent publication of Emotional Heritage resulting from the study of visitor agency in Heritage Sites and Museums opens the way for comparative research and case studies in other contexts than the former British Commonwealth. In this article, the evolution of super-diversity in the Low Countries, and Antwerp in particular, in the twenty-first century is such a case study to urge to move away from that crude concept of visitors and to differentiate more. In European urban contexts, museums face the challenge of connecting the ‘dominant’ ‘culture’/’identity’ represented in their collections with the different ‘cultures’ or ‘identities’ of their target audience. The project team formed a multidisciplinary learning community that created a synergy between art, heritage and education. Three important Antwerp museums participated, providing lessons to secondary students. The museum lessons were developed using the HEM matrix as a multiperspective frame of reference. They were found to appeal to all students in general, and in some respects, the effect of the museum lessons was found to be more positive as the background of the students became more diverse. The project shows that the concept of multiperspectivity is of value to museum strategies addressing an ever more super-diverse urban context.