Hironobu Shindo (The University of Tokyo Graduate School of Education) reflects on his experiences visiting around 100 museums in Europe during his time as a visiting researcher at UIL. Here, he shares insights into the role of museums in fostering citizenship education and lifelong learning.
I’m a Japanese researcher on lifelong learning and museum studies. In 2024–2025, I had my first long-term experience abroad as a visiting researcher at the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) in Hamburg, Germany. The city’s openness, rooted in its history as a port, provided a warm and engaging environment for exploration – both academically and culturally.
My research examined how lifelong learning and museums can contribute to a more engaged and democratic society. I view cultural activities like museum visits as essential elements of lifelong learning.
Japan adopted UNESCO’s ideas of lifelong learning early on, but their application became highly influenced by the country’s era of rapid economic growth, leading to a focus on market-oriented leisure activities. Consequently, lifelong learning is often seen more as a leisure activity than an essential social infrastructure. This has led to lower levels of public support compared to school education, for example, as well as limited participation among the busy younger generation and reduced emphasis on social and political issues.
What drew me to UIL was its ongoing commitment to humanistic values, such as human rights and democracy. While reading Maren Elfert’s book on UNESCO’s history of lifelong learning, I recognized the importance of reconnecting lifelong learning with its original ideals.
A key concern in Japan is the limited space for political discussion in public educational spaces, including museums. Attempts to address controversial topics often face backlash. A notable example is the 2019 Aichi Triennale, where an exhibit featuring a statue of a ‘comfort woman’ triggered online hate and led to the exhibition’s closure. Such incidents reflect a societal resistance to engage in politically charged discussions, which is problematic in a democratic society. At the same time, Japan struggles with low voter turnout and online misinformation, posing urgent challenges for citizenship education.
Germany, by contrast, places greater emphasis on political education – a priority shaped by its history. I wanted to learn how this is reflected in its museums and educational institutions. I began by reviewing literature at UIL and visiting museums across Germany and other parts of Europe.
One crucial insight came from Making Lifelong Learning a Reality: A Handbook, published by UIL, which argues that lifelong learning should serve as a participatory trigger rather than a lofty, idealized concept. It also underlines the important role cultural institutions play in this process. These ideas reaffirmed my belief that lifelong learning must extend into civic and cultural engagement.
Another philosophical perspective that stood out to me was Bildung, often understood as self-formation through cultural and intellectual experiences. At The Future of Bildung in the Nordics conference in Sweden in March 2025, I learned how countries interpret this idea differently. Professor Christoph Wulf at The Free University of Berlin described Bildung as ‘recreation’ – an ongoing process of self-renewal shaped by both internal reflection and external interactions – an idea closely tied to cultural learning.
During my stay, I visited around 100 museums in 20 cities. This helped me realize that museums are more than spaces for passive observation – but they can (and should) act as hubs for connection and dialogue.
At a special exhibition in the BallinStadt museum in Hamburg, historical events like the fall of the Berlin Wall were depicted using Playmobil toys. These familiar objects made complex histories accessible and personally relatable, especially to younger visitors. Migration museums in Bremerhaven and Paris encouraged visitors to think critically about migration as both a historical and contemporary issue, often through open-ended questions or designated debate spaces.
At the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial in Hamburg, one exhibition focused not just on the Second World War, but also on post-war right-wing violence in Germany. This showed how museums can address difficult political histories in ways that inform and engage.
In many museums, I noticed little connection to the local community. However, at the MARKK museum in Hamburg, I participated in a community cooking event last summer which left a strong impression on me. Through these experiences, I came to see museums as platforms for connecting past and present, objects and people, and individuals to broader social debates. To fully realize the potential of museums – and lifelong learning as a whole – they must be seen as active contributors to democratic life. As education becomes increasingly market-driven and individualized in our digital society, lifelong learning through museums should act as a space for open and critical dialogue.
