Best Practice: “Visit to the Museum”

Visit to the museum called “Upplandsmuseet” was part of the Intercultural workshop. The museum shows the life in Uppsala county for over 7,000 years. They link the past to issues that are relevant both today and for the future, from a critical and scientific perspective. The museum has permanent exhibitions which describe the history of the city of Uppsala and the province of Uppland over a period of 5,000 years. There are also topical exhibitions on a range of subjects, with both an Uppland focus and a global perspective. 

Aim of the best practice:

The aim of the best practice were to introduce and to deepen the knowledge of the local area and society for TCN:S living in Uppsala.

Objectives of the best practice:

The objectives were to share the vibrant and interesting cultural history of our county in a visual and interactive way. The idea was also to show TCN:s that Sweden has not always been like it is today. It has been a poor country with people migrating to other countries. The museum shows how people used to live, how they used to work, old items etc.

Besides to give theoretical knowledge to TCN:s regarding the areas of intercultural communication, political trust, human rights and civil society, they also got opportunity to  visit places to create an active and hands-on experience of different important places in the society which relates to the areas of knowledge introduced in the workshop. 

Main actors were TCN:s themselves but also trainers from Folkuniversitetet and the museum.

Between 2 – 3 hours

Since the museum has a lot of things inside, a lot of information and items to look at, between 2-3 hours is a good duration for the best practice.  

For the visit, depending on the number of people, at least one or two people will need to follow the group. Firstly, to show them the place and to be available for questions during the visit. 

The strength was that the TCN:s found it very interesting and got new knowledge about the history of Swedish society and the history of the local area. Furthermore, they got opportunity to practice Swedish.

Some of the participants thought the language was a little bit too difficult regarding information about different exhibitions in the museum.

Divide participants into groups with similar language level if there is a guided tour.

It is good if the responsible staff read themselves about the information available in the museum, before the visit. In that way they know more and can help with questions from the participants.