ABSTRACT
Barriers to accessing museums are not only physical. When thinking about access and inclusion in museums, it is vital to also consider social and cultural barriers. This chapter focuses on how some museums have come to understand class and race as barriers to inclusion. Using the V&A Museum of Childhood in the UK as a case study, it examines how government funding targets led to a new sector-wide interest in the class and race of museum visitors and how this led to a period of community development activities. It asks how successful these interventions were, particularly in the context of research which shows that people from ethnic minority and/or working-class backgrounds are woefully underrepresented in the museum workforce. Finally, it highlights some of the innovative initiatives and practices that are currently seeking to shift the framing of conversations about community, class, and race in museums from access to inclusion.
