Museums, schools and geographies of cultural value

Abstract

This article explores a paradox and a possibility that have emerged from two pieces of policy-related research concerning educational use of museums within England. The paradox relates to the use of museums which, whilst widely perceived as rather elitist institutions, appear from a postcode analysis of school visits to museums to be visited by large numbers of schools located in areas of social deprivation. The present analysis further explores this paradox, drawing on revised postcode analysis and governmental indices of multiple deprivation and income deprivation affecting children. The analysis supports the contention that museums attracted visits from schools located in areas with some of the highest levels of deprivation, although it suggests that this result needs to be considered in relation to regional differences in areas of social deprivation, the location of museums and the differences between individual and area-based measures of deprivation. Attention is then drawn to the potential of considering museums through a geographical perspective, and specifically through Foucault's notions of primary, secondary and tertiary spatializations. It is argued that primary spatializations encompasses how museums are conceptualized and classified; secondary spatializations concern how various elements of museums are articulated together; and tertiary spatializations relate to the placement of museums in wider societal contexts and processes. It is suggested that the postcode analysis of school visits points both to the significance of considering tertiary spatializations relating to the social circumstances of museum visitors but also raised questions concerning primary spatializations of museums. Attention is drawn to changes in the classification and grouping of museums, and how these often encompass geographically based criteria related to the social reach of museums. The article ends by considering the degree to which museums might seek to further change their primary spatialization to reflect tertiary spatializations relating to cultural value.

Keywords:

• museums
• school visits
• social exclusion and inclusion
• geography
• cultural value

Notes

The research teams included Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, Jocelyn Dodd, Martin Phillips, Ceri Jones, Jenny Woodward and Helen O'Riain. The same team worked on both research studies.

This research is being conducted through a collaborative doctoral studentship held by Anna Woodham and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), involving the departments of Geography and Museum Studies at the University of Leicester.

MLA is developing a Database of School Participation to which individual museums can contribute and from which figures and reports can be extrapolated. See for example the MLA Press Release of 29 September 2008 (p. 3) and Roberts, McIntyre and Kerr (2008).

The methodologies were developed to explore and quantify generic learning outcomes (GLOs) using a range of methods including questionnaires for teachers and pupils, interviews, observation, document collection and focus groups. See Hooper-Greenhill (2007, chap. 5) for a full discussion. GLOs were used to provide an evaluation framework by 48% of museums within 3 years of their launch (MLA, 2006, p. 8). They are critiqued by Brown (2007) and Fuirer (2005).

All RCMG reports, including the ones discussed here, are available on the RCMG website: http://www.le.ac.uk/ms/research/rcmg.html

There are actually three “layers” of super output areas: a lower level with a mean population of 1000 and a mean population size of 1500; a middle layer built up from amalgamations of lower layer SOAs to create units with a minimum population of 5000; and an upper layer of further amalgamations to create units with a minimum population of 25,000. Throughout the analyses presented here use is made of the base, lower level SOAs, as these provide the finest spatial resolution of the three forms and is also a unit at which IMD 2004 and IDACI datasets are available. Reference to SOAs throughout this article relates to the lowest level SOAs.

The Department of Communities and Local Government published updated Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD 2007) in December 2007. However, not only had the principal analysis for this article been completed by this date, but given that the focus of the analysis was museum trip undertaken in late 2003 and early 2004, it was felt that IMD 2004 still provided the most appropriate basis of analysis for this article.

Subsequent to the analysis on which this article draws, the DCFS established Edubase, which is an online database containing the locations, by super output areas, of educational establishments in England and Wales. This provides a much easier route to linking school addresses/postcodes to superoutput areas than the look-up tables utilized for this analysis.

Overall only 0.8% of the visits surveyed across the two studies originated from outside of England.

The figures given here are lower than those given in the original ward analysis (Hooper-Greenhill et al., 2004c), which drew on IMD 2000, even though the broad distribution across 10% bands is similar. Such variation is not unexpected given that IMD 2004 utilizes some new variables, incorporates updated data and adopts a different, smaller scale, unit of analysis (see Little, 2006).

Again the figures presented here are lower than those given in the original analysis (Hooper-Greenhill et al., 2004c).