Museums as Agents for Social Inclusion. The Inclusive Memory experience

The problem of social exclusion / inclusion troubles the Western world with significant consequences on the well-being of all citizens. Exclusion or social inclusion are dimensions of the same construct that appears in itself particularly fluid in its conception and interpretation. Evaluation Indicators related to the effectiveness of initiatives, like the one object of the present study, must be rethought because the effects of these actions are perhaps not immediately visible, but represent an unavoidable contemporary need. The Inclusive Memory project, funded as part of a program promoted by the Roma TRE university to foster interdisciplinary research, aims to promote the construction of a common and shared social memory realized through a system of social inclusion that goes through the museum site. The pilot experience described here represents a first attempt to evaluate the use of a heritage model that tends to modify the relationship between the museum and the referred community (Sandell, 2003).