Public engagement with critical exhibitions: Insights from a Brazilian and a Canadian science museum (original) (raw)

Critical exhibitions represent a trend in the science museums landscape. These installations, often issues-based, tend to: display complex socio-scientific issues, approach controversy, challenge visitors’ points of view, and engage visitors in active ways. Informed by theory in the fields of science communication, scientific literacy and science museums, I examined visitors’, curators’ and museum educators’ perspectives on critical exhibitions in Brazil and Canada. I also investigated dimensions of engagement that visitors experienced in these exhibits. Using a qualitative approach and multiple case study as a research strategy, I examined two individual cases: the exhibits Alerts: Knowing to Prevent. Drugs, Tobacco and Alcohol and Preventing Youth Pregnancy, displayed at the Catavento museum (São Paulo, Brazil), and Our World: BMO Sustainability Gallery displayed at the Science World (Vancouver, Canada). In both research sites I conducted observations and interviews with visitors,...