Ivonne Dutra Leivas

Ivonne Dutra Leivas is doctoral student at Grasca – graduate school in contract archaeology.

Research

In my licentiate thesis I investigate how educational programs for schools are implemented within the framework of contract archaeology. I study the underlying incentives that motivate public outreach within contract archaeology, who carries out the outreach and what impact educational programs have on schools. I aim to explore how public outreach within contract archaeology can be organized to meet schools´ demand for knowledge and activities. With an interdisciplinary approach, taken from archaeology and educational sciences, the goal is to instigate a dialogue between the scientific community and contract archaeology, as well as between contract archaeology and schools.

As a primary goal, midway into in my doctoral degree, I have for my licentiate thesis chosen to study the practices of public outreach at urban excavation sites in Sweden, specifically studying outreach practices towards schools.

I also discuss how contract archaeology in the future can make possible broader collaborations with schools. This serves as an introduction to how archaeo-didactics can evolve bringing together contract archaeology's goals and potential in an educational situation, with the needs and goals of school education.

In my doctoral thesis, I will examine what kind of prerequisites there are within the discipline of archaeology for enhancement of an archaeo-didactic field. Furthermore, I will explore what an archaeo-didactic field can encompass and in what way an archaeo-didactic can serve as a tool to improve the collaboration between contract archaeology and the schools.