Dansk Center for Museumsforskning

Photo:By FilipVetter [CC BY-SA 3.0], from Wikimedia Commons

Museums’ statistics internationally show that men are under-represented as visitors in public museums, except for war museums and technical museums. Men are however statistically over-represented in museum collections and networks as e.g. artists, directors, benefactors and as re-enactors in historical re-enactments and living museums. The starting point for our interest is not that these statistics are necessarily problematic, or to identify ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ within museum use. Rather we wish to identify and discuss potential qualitative differences in how different sexes use museums and how museums communicate (intentionally and un-intentionally) with the gender of the visitor. By focusing on ‘how men use museums’ we want to draw attention to a hitherto neglected research area in regard to uses of the past and add to existing research results.

Confirmed speakers and discussants

• Theano Moussouri, Senior Lecturer in Museum Studies, University of London, UK
• John Falk, Executive Director, Institute for Learning Innovation, Sea Grant Professor Emeritus of Free-Choice Learning Oregon State University, USA
• Svend Åge Madsen, psychologist, Head of research at Klinik for Psykologi, Pædagogik og Socialrådgivning at Rigshospitalet, DK
• Julie Rokkjær Birch, Museum Curator, Kvindemuseet (Women’s Museum), DK
• Marianne Grymer Bargemann, Head of Learning and Interpretation, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, DK
• Hans Dam Christensen, Professor, School of Information Studies, Copenhagen University, DK
• Camilla Skovbjerg Paldam, Associate Professor and project coordinator for the research unit on Sexuality Studies Aarhus University, DK
• René Schrøder Christensen, Head of Research and Collections, PhD, Jernbanemuseet (the Danish Railway Museum)