Museums and Social Cohesion: An Integrative Review of Concepts, Evidence and Measurement
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65150/EP-jsshrs/V2E10/2026-09Keywords:
museums, social cohesion, social inclusion, social capital, cultural participation, wellbeing, museum studiesAbstract
Museums across the world increasingly justify their public funding through claims to social benefit, and social cohesion has become one of the most frequently invoked of those benefits. This article reviews the international research literature on museums and social cohesion in order to establish what the literature claims, through what mechanisms museums are held to build cohesion, and how strong the supporting evidence is. An integrative review of scholarship published between 1990 and 2024 identifies four thematic strands: representation and recognition, in which museums include marginalised groups in public narratives; participation and social capital, in which museum programmes build networks and trust; health and wellbeing, in which museum-based interventions reduce social isolation; and policy frameworks, in which international instruments formalise the museum’s social role. The article contends that the literature demonstrates consistent small-scale effects while leaving the central claim undertested, because social cohesion is defined at the level of societies yet measured at the level of programmes and individuals. This mismatch of scale, rather than any absence of effect, constitutes the principal gap in the field. The review closes with an agenda for research that is longitudinal, comparative and geographically broader than the United Kingdom, North America and Western Europe, where the existing evidence is concentrated.
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