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Abstract

This article aims to contribute to the understanding of how users of museums and galleries make sense of their experience. In order to do this it analyses the results of a research project that aimed to determine the ability of museums to ameliorate the effects of social exclusion. The results are analysed using the constructs of human, social, cultural and identity capital. The analysis presents a complex picture that contributes to an understanding of how the visitors to the exhibitions and participants in the community development projects considered made use of them as a context to make investments, which had a range of social benefits. The motivation behind these investments was that they allowed the individuals concerned to understand and in some cases modify the social world around them. This was carried out in response to the needs of those individuals at a particular time, which for the respondents was related to their personal experience of exclusion.

Keywords

cultural capital human capital identity capital museums social capital social impact

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Capital and the evaluation of the museum experience

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