Museums and educational communities before and after Covid-19. Participation in digital contexts as a tool of cultural sustainability

Abstract

As a result of the Covid-19 socio-health crisis, museums had a significant increase in their digital communication and – among other actions – tried to respond to the resource needs of teachers and families, expanding their repertoire of proposals and activities, many of which involved higher levels of participation and interaction, such as challenges, activities and workshops. The above, in our understanding, can be interpreted as a strategy that contributes to cultural sustainability, as it democratizes access to these resources and provides agency to people in an active learning process around their own culture and heritage. Based on a survey carried out among the museums of Catalonia, the article aims to understand the type of participation that was promoted with this digital diversification in the educational field and its eventual impact once museums returned to normality. As a result of the analysis, we believe that, although some of these digital resources remain, museums mostly choose to resume their pre-pandemic educational strategies without exploring the possibilities offered by digital communication in educational contexts as a complement to in-person presence to contribute to cultural sustainability of their communities.