Effective or not? Success or failure? Assessing heritage and archaeological education programmes – the case of Çatalhöyük

Abstract

Recent decades have witnessed an increasing involvement of archaeology projects in planning and carrying out heritage education programmes 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-running education programme, run by the 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 programmes. However, most of archaeological education programmes have failed to carry out this important component. In order to be effective and successful, the success of the education programmes 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 education programmes, suggest the most suitable methodology for assessment through examining the Çatalhöyük education programmes.