Current and future trends in museums regarding visitors with disabilities: the case of visitors with visual impairments Vassilis Argyropoulos 1 , Magda Nikolaraizi 1 , Charikleia Kanari 1 , and Sofia Chamonikolaou 1 1 University of Thessaly, Department of Special Education, Volos, Greece {vassargi, mnikolar, chamonik}@uth.gr, kanarixarikleia@hotmail.com ABSTRACT It is stated that over the past decades museums have devel- oped educational programs for individuals with disabili- ties, making adaptations according the disability and the needs of each group. Nevertheless, people with visual im- pairments face many barriers regarding their access to mu- seums. The present study highlights the contemporary role of the museums, the socio-anthropological paradigm for disability and the influence of many political and social movements of people with disabilities regarding access and cultural rights in general. 1. INTRODUCTION Access to culture has been recognized as a right of people with disabilities in the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities [1]. It seems that access to culture encom- passes multi-dimensional issues relevant to economic fac- tors, societal norms and political movements. This paper attempts to describe current and future trends in museums regarding visitors with disabilities giving an emphasis on visitors with visual impairments. Why the emphasis is placed on individuals with visual impair- ments? Because it is very likely that a person with visual impairment will end up with a disappointing museum ex- perience, when he/she decides to visit a museum without any preliminary activities (i. e. inform the museum staff for his/her intention to visit the specific museum, etc.). On the other hand, museum professionals face this same chal- lenge from a different point of view, having the difficult task of designing exhibits and programs with few universal guidelines for what the concept of cultural accessibility should look like for visitors with low vision or blindness [2]. 2. CURRENT TRENDS 2.1 Policy makers and social model of disability The adoption of the social model of disability in contrast to the individual or medical model of disability had a significant impact on policies and practices towards disability, including those of museums [3]. All notions which were developed under the umbrella of anti-social models of disability model contributed to the perpetuation of various stereotypes and to the considera- tion of people with disabilities in terms of therapy or treat- ment ignoring the role of the society and the barriers that may affect and shape the experience of disability. The so- cial model of disability stresses issues like the failure of the society to respond to the needs of people with disabili- ties, the barriers and the limitations of the society, which isolate and exclude people with disabilities from equal so- cial participation. Such an example constitutes the interac- tion between museums and people with disability [4]. 2.2 The educational and social role of the museums in the 21 st century Museums have recognized that audiences in general are not homogeneous groups but consists of different people with different and various needs, different ages, different social, educational, religious or ethnic backgrounds, dif- ferent interests and expectations [5]. As a result, museums have developed a wide range of services, activities and practices such as educational programmes for schoolchil- dren with and without disabilities, workshops, educational material, outreach programmes, loan services, etc. In addi- tion, it seems that the relationship between museums and schools is gaining ground and teachers contribute to mean- ingful learning experiences in museums and positive social experiences on behalf of their students [6]. This re-defini- tion of the museums’ role towards their educational and social impact is reflected on the museums’ definition of the International Council of Museums (ICOM, 2007) as well as on the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disa- bilities towards culture [1]. 2.3 Issues of accessibility Regarding access of people with disabilities to museums, it is true that constitutes one of the central topic of discus- sions in museums around the world. Speaking of individ- uals with visual impairments, the request for access to the exhibits of museums is in contrast with one of the most important objectives of many museums: to display art- works and museum objects and protect them at the same time [3]. Copyright: © 2017 First author et al. This is an open-access article dis- tributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0 Unported, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. 9th ICEVI European Conference: Empowered by Dialogue (2-7 July 2017, Bruges, Belgium) 32