Abstract
Museums are places for potentially promoting emotions and creating memories from the experiences they provide. In this regard, this article investigates why people visit science museums, intending to unveil the public’s diversity and facilitate the understanding of their interests and motivations for this cultural practice. Data were collected by means of a printed and self-applied questionnaire filled out by adult visitors over 30 years old during visits to five science museums located in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Based on the concepts of cultural capital, science, interest and motivation, the applied analytical approach was qualitative and quantitative aided by the Collective Subject Discourse method. The findings bring contributions to the field of public and cultural leisure studies. Processes of acquiring, expanding and transmitting these forms of capital to children, family, and friends emerge from the discourses during interaction with exhibitions and educational and dissemination activities offered by science museums. This understanding can help to develop museum strategies to attract and retain their spontaneous visiting public.
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