Abstract
This paper explores how people from low-income, minority ethnic groups perceive and experience exclusion from informal science education (ISE) institutions, such as museums and science centers. Drawing on qualitative data from four focus groups, 32 interviews, four accompanied visits to ISE institutions, and field notes, this paper presents an analysis of exclusion from science learning opportunities during visits alongside participants’ attitudes, expectations, and conclusions about participation in ISE. Participants came from four community groups in central London: a Sierra Leonean group (n = 21), a Latin American group (n = 18), a Somali group (n = 6), and an Asian group (n = 13). Using a theoretical framework based on the work of Bourdieu, the analysis suggests ISE practices were grounded in expectations about visitors’ scientific knowledge, language skills, and finances in ways that were problematic for participants and excluded them from science learning opportunities. It is argued that ISE practices reinforced participants preexisting sense that museums and science centers were “not for us.” The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings in relation to previous research on participation in ISE and the potential for developing more inclusive informal science learning opportunities.
Highlights
The landscape of science learning is broad and ranges from schools to homes to museums, from designed learning environments to chance talks with friends
The study presented in this paper explored in detail how social exclusion from informal science education (ISE) worked in practice from the perspective of people from disadvantaged social positions, drawing on data collected in the United Kingdom
This study used a theoretical framework drawn from Bourdieu (1992, 1998) to demonstrate how difference is performed in ISE institutions and found that social exclusion and nonparticipation are part of a complex system and work hand in hand to reproduce disadvantages
Summary
The landscape of science learning is broad and ranges from schools to homes to museums, from designed learning environments to chance talks with friends. Within designed science learning environments questions about who participates, how they do so, and why have traditionally been framed in terms of students within schools and universities. Less attention has been paid to equity and widening participation in science learning in everyday life, outside the walls of schools, universities, and the labor market. In the past 30 years, informal or lifelong science education has grown in terms of research, activity, training, and international spread to become a significant feature of the science learning landscape (Bray, France, & Gilbert, 2011; Falk et al, 2012). From Australia to Saudi Arabia, informal science education (ISE) institutions such as science centers, museums, aquaria, and zoos offer opportunities for their visitors to learn about science, understand it, and question it outside school and university curricula and long after they graduate (Packer & Ballantyne, 2002; Zahrani, 2010). How accessible are the opportunities ISE provides? In this paper, I explore whether there are grounds to seriously question the claim made by Frank Oppenheimer, the founder of the Exploratorium science center, that “no one ever flunked a museum” (Semper, 1990, p. 52)
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