ABSTRACT
This chapter is dedicated to museum professionals’ perspectives on science exhibitions that engage with controversy. To this end, the authors draw on data from interviews that they conducted with museum professionals in Brazil, Canada, Italy, Finland, the U.S.A., and Zimbabwe, with a focus on institutional expectations and aspirations for the visitor experience. The rich, thick narratives gathered, and the documents that the museum professionals shared, are structured around emergent themes that represent possibilities for challenging visitors’ beliefs; disrupting dominant science narratives; calling for emotional engagement; promoting dialogue and participation; and fostering agency.
