Context and Culture in Evaluation: A Case Study of Evaluation Anthropology

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-38
Author(s):  
Elise Howard

Designing programs to address poverty and inequality for Australian Aboriginal communities over recent decades has proved problematic. There is a need for greater consideration of different cultural perspectives. A culturally appropriate evaluation framework can provide a range of strategies to embrace cultural difference. Evaluation anthropology, one of many culturally appropriate approaches, emphasises understanding of socio-cultural environments and contexts, and reflective practice to draw attention to cultural bias. This paper will define evaluation anthropology and then reflect on its usefulness in establishing an evaluation framework for a preliteracy program located in a remote Aboriginal community in Australia. The aims of the program are to improve school readiness through developing preliteracy (English language) skills in children aged 0-3 years. Developing an evaluation framework for the program required an approach that accounted for the socio-cultural aspects of literacy development. The lessons from this case study demonstrate the need for place-specific theory to inform program design and evaluation practice.

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 121
Author(s):  
Nisa Hasanah ◽  
Wawan Gunawan

As the result of globalization, the English language teaching goals in many countries have shifted from communicative competence to intercultural communicative competence (ICC). However, among the small number of studies on ICC in Indonesia, most of them focus on ICC in the tertiary level which shows there is a gap of work in the secondary level of education. Thus, this article attempts to seek the truth about senior high school teachers� understanding and beliefs as well as revealing their attempts in promoting ICC in the classroom. The case study was employed with two novice teachers as participants through interview and document analysis. The finding shows some interesting facts that both teachers viewed concept of ICC similarly as cross-cultural understanding in a way both to overcome misunderstanding and culture shock. Both teachers believed that language is culture bound, yet, only a very small trace of cultural aspects were shown in the documents; and as they viewed culture as dynamic, yet, the content being taught mainly covered static domain of culture.��Keywords: Byram�s five savoirs; culture education; intercultural communicative competence.


IIUC Studies ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 283-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Md Maksud Ali

ELT curriculum design has seen several transformations overtime, especially with the changing views on the educational ideologies and philosophies in the western world. As far as teaching English in an English as a Second/Foreign language (ESL/EFL) context is concerned, it is often suggested that the ESL or the EFL education should be acculturalized as to be responsive to a particular group of people, and that again refers to the need for a national curriculum for ELT in an EFL country. Thus, in designing an ELT curriculum in an ESOL context, the designers need to examine not only whether the curriculum is responsive to the needs of a group of learners but also if it is ‘culturally appropriate’ in that context or not. Following a qualitative case study research method, this paper examines the extent to which the Higher Secondary ELT national curriculum in Bangladesh is responsive to the socio-cultural needs and the needs of the learners.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/iiucs.v7i0.12494 IIUC Studies Vol.7 2011: 283-296


Author(s):  
Judith F. Fynn ◽  
Wendy Hardeman ◽  
Karen Milton ◽  
Andy Jones

Abstract Background Interventions to improve physical activity behaviour are a core part of public health policy and practice. It is essential that we evaluate these interventions and use the evidence to inform decisions to improve population health. Evaluation of ‘real-world’ interventions provide an opportunity to generate practice-relevant evidence, however these interventions are difficult to evaluate. Various guidelines have been developed to facilitate evaluation, but evidence about their effectiveness in practice is limited. To explore influences on evaluation practice in an applied context, we conducted a case study of Sport England’s ‘Get Healthy Get Active’ (GHGA) programme. This was a national programme that funded 33 projects that were delivered and evaluated across England. The programme was chosen as it was designed to generate evidence on the role of sport in increasing physical activity and improving health. The study aimed to explore and appraise whether strategies intended to facilitate project evaluation, including funder requirements to use a standardised evaluation framework and specific data collection methods, were effective in generating evidence that enabled the programme to meet its aims. Methods We applied a collective case study design involving 35 semi-structured interviews, and documentary analysis of multiple sources of evidence from 23 physical activity projects funded by GHGA. We applied thematic and framework analysis. We developed a logic model and mapped actual outcomes against intended outcomes. A narrative synthesis is provided. We discuss implications for the effective commissioning and evaluation of public health interventions. Results We identified five main themes of influences on evaluation practices that can act as barriers and facilitators to good practice: programme and project design; evaluation design; partnerships; resources; and organisational structures and systems. These influences are context-specific and operate through a complex set of interactions. Conclusion Developing a better understanding of how influences on evaluation practice can act as facilitators or barriers is vital to help close current gaps in the evidence-based practice cycle. Critically, organisational structures and systems are needed to facilitate collaborative decision making; integration of projects and evaluation across partners organisations; transfer of knowldege and insights between stakeholders; and more rapid feedback and dissemination.


2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 155
Author(s):  
Natália Maria De Oliveira ◽  
José Flávio Morais Castro

<p>As técnicas de pesquisa observação e descrição são fundamentais aos estudos geográficas. A análise da paisagem, natural ou cultural, sobretudo histórica, depende de registros documentais capazes de descrevê-la com riqueza de detalhes. Os relatos de mulheres viajantes do século XIX são compreendidos como importantes documentos históricos à análise da paisagem e da organização social do período. Compreende-se a literatura de viagem, principalmente para o viés humanista-cultural da Geografia, instrumento de análise de aspectos físicos, sociais e culturais. Realiza-se nesta pesquisa um levantamento bibliográfico dos relatos de viagem de mulheres viajantes estrangeiras que estiveram no Brasil durante o século XIX, alem do estudo de caso sobre as contribuições para a análise da paisagem contidas no diário de viagem “Uma Parisiense no Brasil”. Por fim, a análise espacial das informações obtidas a partir deste relato, de autoria de Adèle Toussaint-Samson, apresenta uma das possibilidades de resultado de pesquisas que utilizem relatos de mulheres viajantes estrangeiras do século XIX.</p><p><strong>Palavras-chave</strong>: Observação; Descrição; Mulheres Viajantes; Século XIX; Literatura.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>Observation and description are fundamental research techniques to geographical studies. The Analisys of landscape, natural or cultural, especially historical, depends on documental records that are able to describe it in great detail. The traveling women reports from the nineteenth century are important historical documents to analyze the landscape and social organization of the period. Travel literature is, especially to the humanistic and cultural bias of Geography, an instrument of analysis for physical, social and cultural aspects. This research carried out a bibliographical survey on foreing traveling women who visited Brazil during the nineteenth century. A case study on the travel diary “A Parisian in Brasil” by Adèle Toussaint-Samson was made, emphasizing its contribuitions to landscape analysis. Finally, the spatial analysis of the information from this report presents one of the possible results for researches using reports of foreign women travelers of the nineteenth century.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Keyword</strong>: Observation, Description, Traveling Women, Nineteenth Century, Literature</p>


Author(s):  
Nancy Lewis ◽  
Nancy Castilleja ◽  
Barbara J. Moore ◽  
Barbara Rodriguez

This issue describes the Assessment 360° process, which takes a panoramic approach to the language assessment process with school-age English Language Learners (ELLs). The Assessment 360° process guides clinicians to obtain information from many sources when gathering information about the child and his or her family. To illustrate the process, a bilingual fourth grade student whose native language (L1) is Spanish and who has been referred for a comprehensive language evaluation is presented. This case study features the assessment issues typically encountered by speech-language pathologists and introduces assessment through a panoramic lens. Recommendations specific to the case study are presented along with clinical implications for assessment practices with culturally and linguistically diverse student populations.


2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eriselda Vrapi ◽  
Xhevdet Zekaj

This study aims to explore the use of video in English language teaching (ELT) elementary school (grades 8 to 9)... In addition, the thesis aims to find out how videos in English lessons helped to achieve the goals of English curriculum. The main hypothesis was that teaching with video would develop pupils’ communicative skills and, therefore, was appropriate for the communicative approach to ELT. The study addressed five research questions regarding the use of videos in English lessons in the case study school: why the teachers used videos in ELT, what kinds of videos were used in English lessons, how and how often videos were used, what was taught and learned through the use of videos and, finally, what the teachers’ and pupils’ attitudes to lessons with videos were. The research was performed as a case study at an Elbasan elementary school. The data for the research was obtained through the use of mixed methods: qualitative, in the form of interviews with four English teachers and observations of three of the interviewed teachers’ lessons with videos, and quantitative, in the form of a pupil questionnaire answered by 105 pupils from two 8th grade and two 9th grade classes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
J.-L. Gourdine ◽  
A. Fourcot ◽  
C. Lefloch ◽  
M. Naves ◽  
G. Alexandre

AbstractThe present study aims to assess (1) the ecosystem services (ES) provided by LFS and (2) the differential ES between local (Creole) and exotic breeds from pig, cattle and goat. The ES are defined as the benefits that humans derive from LFS. They were summarized in 12 ES indicators that cover services related to provisioning, ecological and socio-cultural aspects and territorial vitality. A total of 106 LFS units that covers the five agroecological zones of Guadeloupe were analysed. Functional typologies of LFS per species were created from surveys. The effect of breed on the ES indicators was tested. Results showed that the 40 pig LFS units were separated into 3 clusters that were differentiated in ES according to provisioning ES (cluster 1), cultural use and sale to the neighborhood (cluster 2) and pork self-consumption (cluster 3). The typology of the 57 farms with cattle distinguished 4 clusters with differences in ES provided in self-consumption (cluster1), ecological ES (cluster 2), socio-cultural ES for racing or draught oxen (cluster 3) and ES associated with territory vitality (cluster 4). The 66 goat LFS units were classified into 3 clusters different in ES concerning self-consumption (cluster 1), cultural aspects (cluster 2) and provisioning ES (cluster 3). Our study highlights that ES indicators are not breed dependent (P > 0.10) but rather livestock farming system dependent. The ES rely more on the rearing management than on the breed type, and up to now, there are no specifications in Guadeloupe to differentiate management between breeds.


2021 ◽  
Vol 139 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-127
Author(s):  
Mark Faulkner

Abstract This paper demonstrates the potential of new methodologies for using existing corpora of medieval English to better contextualise linguistic variants, a major task of philology and a key underpinning of our ability to answer major literary-historical questions, such as when, where and to what purpose medieval texts and manuscripts were produced. The primary focus of the article is the assistance these methods can offer in dating the composition of texts, which it illustrates with a case study of the “Old” English Life of St Neot, uniquely preserved in the mid-twelfth-century South-Eastern homiliary, London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian D.xiv, fols. 4–169. While the Life has recently been dated around 1100, examining its orthography, lexis, syntax and style alongside that of all other English-language texts surviving from before 1150 using new techniques for searching the Dictionary of Old English Corpus suggests it is very unlikely to be this late. The article closes with some reflections on what book-historical research should prioritise as it further evolves into the digital age.


Geoheritage ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Pásková ◽  
J. Zelenka ◽  
T. Ogasawara ◽  
B. Zavala ◽  
I. Astete

AbstractHolistic interpretation of Earth heritage is one of the most important tasks of UNESCO Global geoparks. The ABC (abiotic, biotic, and cultural interconnections) concept is a potential interpretive approach used in Earth heritage popularization through geotourism. Apart of the deeper understanding of this concept, this study explores the application of this concept in selected geoparks. The Colca and Volcanoes Andagua UNESCO Global Geopark (Peru) and Muroto UNESCO Global Geopark (Japan) served as a case study in the frame of this qualitative research conducted during the summer 2019. Results show that the ABC approach is nearly perfectly understood by both geoparks, however there are both internal and external factors which influence the extent and form of how this concept is applied in practice. Except for specific geographical settings, different stages of geopark product development, and different managerial approaches, they mainly include the level of scientific knowledge and general education in the given geopark, as well as level of knowledge management and networking with another UNESCO global geoparks. The more experienced Muroto Geopark interpretation exhibits a comparatively higher level of visible ABC application, while the Colca and Volcanoes Andagua Geopark can benefit in the future from the natural inclination and ability of the local people to integrate the cultural aspects into their Earth heritage interpretation.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document