Effective or not? Success or Failure? Assessing Archaeological Education Programs – The Case of Çatalhöyük

Summary

Recent decades have witnessed an increasing involvement of archaeology projects in planning and carrying out heritage education programs to increase heritage awareness among the public. This paper aims to explore ways in which models of education programmes in Public Archaeology could be more effective in ensuring the protection of heritage sites by examining the one of the worlds longest education program that has been run by Çatalhöyük Research Project in Turkey. It is important to pay attention to multi-vocal elements such as social, political and educational backgrounds of the communities to develop more effective education programmes, and most importantly it is crucial to assess the effectiveness and success of those programs. However, most of the archaeological education programs have failed to do this important component too. In order to be effective and successful, the success of the education programs and the ways in which they are implemented and their results must be known and critically examined. Specifically, this paper will discuss the necessity of measuring the effectiveness of the education programmes, suggest the most suitable methodology for assessment, as this kind of study is a unique in world wide context, through examining the Çatalhöyük education programs.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Assessing Outcomes in Public Archaeology: Imperatives, Perils, and Frameworks

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