Inclusive museums for children with disabilities: utilising disabled expertise to create more inclusive museums

This qualitative study aims to investigate strategies for enhancing inclusivity for museum visitors, particularly disabled children. By addressing barriers faced by museum educators with disabilities, the study explores the role of lived experience in redesigning practices which make museum interactions more geared to the lived experiences of children with disabilities. In this study we seek to address: What are barriers that employment opportunities create for museum educators with disabilities? What are solutions to these barriers? How does lived experience play a role in discussions where museum educators with disabilities (re)design to solve for these barriers? By integrating direct voices of individuals with lived experiences of disability within the research team, the study values their insights and perspectives, so our methodologies, research questions, and data analysis are shaped to reflect the needs of colleagues with lived experiences. Expected results involve identifying barriers within the museum education field and proposing solutions to job creation for disabled museum workers.