Demographics – American Alliance of Museums

Museums and the Census: How can you help?

By American Alliance of Museums

The 2020 United States Census is right around the corner, with National Census Day taking place on April 1, and it’s time for museums to start thinking about how they’ll be involved. This once-a-decade process of counting the country’s …
How Are Older People Different?

By Bill Tramposch

It’s always risky to bundle a demographic into one description, but very credible research has revealed a great deal about the over-fifty demographic in the United States: who they are, in general, and what they seek in their lives. As …
Who’s afraid of the “majority minority” future?

By Elizabeth Merritt

I am not entirely comfortable with the fact that I’m looked to as something of a “thought leader’ in the museum field. I think of my writing, here on the blog or in CFM reports such as TrendsWatch, as the literary equivalent of sharing …
Welcoming New Citizens: A Natural Role for Museums

By Elizabeth Merritt

When Nicole Ivy and I were working on the 2016 edition of TrendsWatch, CFM’s annual forecasting report, we identified mass migration as a global trend having a huge impact on museums and their communities. The topic was so complex we spent …
Museums and Migration

By Elizabeth Merritt

Mass migration, driven by conflict, oppression, political upheaval, climate change and economic distress, has been described as “the defining issue of this century.” As such, it is one of many critical issues that museums can address in …
Museum Studies Programs & Tools for Creating More Inclusive Curricula

By Gretchen Sorin

The graduates of museum studies programs are overwhelmingly white and female. If we want museums to be staffed by people who reflect the American public, we can broaden our search beyond museum studies program, and we can encourage …
Do-ing Diversity in Museums

By Elizabeth Merritt

Chris Taylor’s commitment to helping his institution make traction in conversations about diversity, inclusion, and professional development led to the creation of The Department of Inclusion and Community Engagement (DICE) at the …
Museum Magazine and The Future of Diversity

By Elizabeth Merritt

Since CFM launched in 2008, I’ve been aware of the danger of our work being the proverbial mile wide and an inch deep. That is why the CFM Fellow program, now in its infancy, is so critical: fellows will give us the capacity to take a …
Touring “Slavery at Monticello”: A Small App with a Big Responsibility

By Elizabeth Merritt

One frustrating limitation of CFM’s work is that usually I have to cover the great things going on in museums based on second hand accounts—articles I’ve read in the press, Skype or email interviews with museum staff. So I was delighted …
Throwback Thursday: the Coming Dementia Epidemic

By Elizabeth Merritt

This past Tuesday, Lisa Eriksen blogged about museum programs for people with dementia and how staff address the thorny challenge shifting focus from impact to engagement, and assessing programs that explicitly do not expect to impart new …