Tensions, challenges and advances: Accessibility and inclusion in a Brazilian science museum from the perspective of staff with disabilities

This article explores organizational change towards the inclusion of people with disabilities in a Brazilian science museum through the perspectives of museum staff members with disabilities. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with seven professionals (deaf, blind and autistic) who work at the Museum of Life Fiocruz, we analyse how tensions, challenges and advances are produced and negotiated across different institutional contexts. Building on an organizational change framework, the study demonstrates that inclusion is unevenly implemented across departments, reflecting differences in leadership, training, communication and institutional priorities. These dynamics generate tensions that are not merely obstacles to but constitutive elements of the change process. By centring the perspectives of professionals with disabilities, the findings show how inclusion practices reveal and reshape core institutional norms, values and assumptions about participation and expertise. In this way, the article contributes to understanding organizational change towards inclusion as a cultural process, emphasizing the role of tensions in transforming science communication practices.