Staff Training on Disability Awareness in Museum Settings: A Scoping Review

Disability awareness training is an important component of inclusive practices in museums. Problems occur when staff are unsure of how to interact with people with disabilities. This scoping review identifies existing research on disability awareness training and identifies gaps in the literature. The databases searched include Sage, Education Full Text, Wiley, and JSTOR. Included studies were peer-reviewed, published in English, and focused on disability awareness training in museum settings. The search produced 714 articles. After 27 duplicates were removed, 667 articles were excluded during a title and abstract review. Thirteen of the remaining 20 articles were removed during the full article review. Seven articles met the inclusion criteria. Two more articles were identified in the reference lists of the qualifying articles. In total, nine articles were included in this study. Qualitative analysis was used to evaluate the data. Common themes were identified regarding the perspectives of people with disabilities and museum staff, knowledge gaps, and suggestions for improving the museum experience. Ensuring equal opportunities requires buy-in from all stakeholders. Support must be set in place at the personal, organizational, and community levels.