Museum Education in the Making of the Region Scania

This paper studies regional museum, archives and arts education commissions of the Region of Scania, reformed in 2009, from a policy analysis perspective. It describes the background, design and implementation of the new policy and analyses its effects. The paper gives detailed information on the complexities of policy tool design and implementation, and discusses it in the light of regional governance. An evaluation of the system of regional support to museum education in Scania, shows that the reformed regional museum, archives and arts education policy of 2009 has had effects contrary to those intended. Due to internal reorganization, the intentions of politicians with the policy and the ambitions of civil servants designing the policy have not been translated into an effective policy tool. Internal regional goal achievement and adherence to other areas of regional policy dictated the design of the new museum, archives and arts education policy of the Region. As a result, the important dimension of museums, archives and arts institutions as educational spaces has been reduced rather than expanded. Clearly, effective policies need more than good intentions.