ABSTRACT
Having demonstrated that museums need not be analysed purely in terms of ideology, and thus that there is a potential role for them to enable people to produce their own sense of the past in a creative way, it now remains to examine ways in which museums can become more responsive to this role. In particular, we have to look at how barriers that deter people from visiting museums might be removed. In the next three chapters, an attempt is made to do this, first, by providing information on contemporary patterns of visiting and the characteristics of visitors, and then by explaining why these patterns occur through an analysis of attitudes to museums and an examination of theoretical schemes to explain them.
