Visitor Belonging in Museums: A Museum Professional Reflective Guide

Understanding visitor belonging is a natural extension of science museums’ work to improve the visitor experience and access to informal STEM learning. The research study that informs this guide reveals that belonging can be an essential tool in improving science centers and museums to ensure equitable access for all. Reflections are a great tool for influencing concrete changes toward improving visitor sense of belonging grounded in the visitor experience. They can also generate excitement across staff about new ideas and directions in STEM exhibit/experience development. This guide includes: a model for understanding belonging in the context of museums drawn from visitors' experiences; guidance for doing observations of and reflecting on belonging in museum spaces; specific examples from case studies, with visitor photographs, of museum spaces that visitors described as contributing to/detracting from their experiences in the museum; and a set of worksheets to help with the documentation of staff observations and reflections. This guide provides a set of resources for museum teams to start examining their spaces and guide the kind of transformational change they wish to make.