Culturally Responsive Evaluation Meets Systems-Oriented Evaluation

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronica G. Thomas ◽  
Beverly A. Parsons
Keyword(s):  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
Responsive Evaluation

Looking Backward but Moving Forward

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 543-568 ◽  
Author(s):  
Waapalaneexkweew (Nicole R. Bowman-Farrell, Mohican/Lunaape)
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Policy Evaluation ◽  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
The United States ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Western Literature ◽  
Responsive Evaluation ◽  
European Contact ◽  
Practice Gap ◽  
Origin Story

Culturally responsive evaluation and culturally responsive Indigenous evaluation (CRIE) within the broader field of evaluation are not often included in Western literature nor are they known or used by the majority of mainstream evaluators. In order to address this literature and practice gap, this article offers an overview and a broader origin story of CRIE prior to colonial or European contact in the United States and gives an overview of the historical, theoretical, and practical foundations for conducting CRIE in a contemporary evaluation context. Examples of evidence-based models, theories, and resources are provided to connect CRIE to Western evaluation designs and provide concrete strategies for the field of evaluation going forward. The article concludes with systemic and policy evaluation considerations as agencies from federal (i.e., United States), tribal, and international governments and partners from private or nonprofit sectors collaborate to carry out Indigenous evaluations in the future. Collectively this multijurisdictional, culturally responsive, and community-centered CRIE approach gives evaluators a new way to move forward.

Challenges to Evaluating Physical Activity Programs in American Indian/Alaska Native Communities

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 166-182
Author(s):  
Erica Blue Roberts ◽  
James Butler ◽  
Kerry M. Green
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
American Indian ◽  
Alaska Native ◽  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
Funding Agency ◽  
Native Communities ◽  
Responsive Evaluation ◽  
Obesity And Diabetes ◽  
Evaluation Staff ◽  
Depth Interviews

Despite the importance of evaluation to successful programming, a lack of physical activity program (PAP) evaluation for American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) programs exists, which is significant given the high rates of obesity and diabetes in this population. While evaluation barriers have been identified broadly among AI/AN programs, challenges specific to physical activity (PA) programming are unexplored. To address this gap, a research study was conducted involving 17 in-depth interviews with evaluation staff of externally funded AI/AN PAPs. A thematic analysis revealed factors hindering meaningful program evaluation: cultural characteristics that challenge traditional evaluation, the logistics of PA programming, measurement and data collection challenges, lack of resources and support, and lack of alignment between funding agency requirements and the evaluation desired by AI/AN organizations. Some challenges are general to PAPs and others specific to AI/AN organizations. Findings identify ways to improve culturally responsive evaluation for AI/AN PAPs.

Being Culturally Responsive in a Formative Evaluation of a Professional Development School: Successes and Missed Opportunities of an Educative, Values-Engaged Evaluation

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 384-403
Author(s):  
Jori N. Hall ◽  
Melissa Freeman ◽  
Soria E. Colomer
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
Formative Evaluation ◽  
Professional Development School ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
First Year ◽  
Cultural Characteristics ◽  
Missed Opportunities ◽  
Responsive Evaluation ◽  
University Partnership

While evaluators have explored the implementation of culturally responsive evaluation (CRE), the failures of applying CRE are less often told. In this article, we use a reflective case narrative to explore our successes and failures in implementing our CRE approach, including an educative stance. We draw on a formative evaluation of a district–university partnership during its first year. Our analysis of the reflective case narrative makes transparent how our culturally responsive, educative approach was sufficient to employ culturally responsive methods. Yet, our culturally responsive, educative stance failed to provide critical midcourse feedback, which worked against the development of the district–university partnership. The lessons learned from the formative evaluation are important to draw attention to the intersections between the cultural characteristics of the evaluand and how the evaluation contributes to educative insights.

Talking Circles: A Culturally Responsive Evaluation Practice

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-383
Author(s):  
Martha A. Brown ◽  
Sherri Di Lallo
Keyword(s):  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
Program Design ◽  
Evaluation Method ◽  
Global Evaluation ◽  
Responsive Evaluation ◽  
Evaluation Practice ◽  
Safe Spaces ◽  
Evaluation Community ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
Talking Circles

Talking Circles are safe spaces where relationships are built, nurtured, reinforced, and sometimes healed; where norms and values are established; and where people connect intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally with other members of the Circle. The Circle can also be an evaluation method that increases voice, decreases invisibility, and does not privilege one worldview or version of reality over another. The purpose of this article is to describe how the Circle can be a culturally responsive evaluation practice for those evaluators wishing to build relationships, share power, elicit stakeholder voice, solve problems, and increase participants’ capacity for program design, implementation, and evaluation. Circles can be used by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous evaluators. By offering the global evaluation community this concrete, practical, and culturally responsive approach, we open the door so that others can build on this work and offer additional insights as this practice is used, refined, and documented.

Addressing Social Injustices, Displacement, and Minority Rights Through Cases of Culturally Responsive Evaluation

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 167-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helga Stokes ◽  
Shane S. Chaplin ◽  
Shimaa Dessouky ◽  
Liya Aklilu ◽  
Rodney K. Hopson
Keyword(s):  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
Minority Rights ◽  
Responsive Evaluation

Culturally Responsive Evaluation as a Form of Critical Qualitative Inquiry

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Bryan ◽  
Ashlee Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Program Evaluation ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
World View ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Responsive Evaluation ◽  
Shared Beliefs ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Ways Of Life

As a form of applied research, program evaluation is concerned with determining the worth, merit, or value of a program or project using various research methods. Over the past 20 years, the field of program evaluation has seen an expansion in the number of approaches deemed useful in accomplishing the goals of an evaluation. One of the newest approaches to the practice of evaluation is culturally responsive evaluation. Practitioners of CRE draw from a “responsive approach” to evaluation that involves being attuned to and responsive toward not only the program itself, but also its larger cultural context and the lives and experiences of program staff and stakeholders. CRE views culture broadly as the totality of shared beliefs, behaviors, values, and customs socially transmitted within a group and which shapes group members’ world view and ways of life. Further, with respect to their work, culturally responsive evaluators share similar commitments with scholars to critical qualitative inquiry, including a belief in moving inquiry (evaluation) beyond description to intervention in the pursuit of progressive social change, as well as positioning their work as a means by which to confront injustices in society, particularly the marginalization of people of color. Owing to these beliefs and aims, culturally responsive evaluators tend to lean toward a more qualitative orientation, both epistemologically and methodologically. Thus, when taken up in practice, culturally responsive evaluation can be read as a form of critical qualitative inquiry.

Confucian Evaluation: Reframing Contribution Analysis Using a Confucian Lens

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 562-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Dinh ◽  
Heather Worth ◽  
Bridget Haire ◽  
Khuat Thu Hong
Keyword(s):  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
Evaluation Methods ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Complex Societies ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
Value System ◽  
Responsive Evaluation ◽  
A Value ◽  
Contribution Analysis ◽  
Universal Truth

Culturally responsive evaluation contests that Western-derived evaluation methods represent a universal truth and promotes approaches that reflect the local context. Taking this approach, we examine how the method of contribution analysis may be modified to reflect a different worldview. We reframe contribution analysis using a Confucian lens as Confucianism represents a value system that is still integral to the way societies operate in several East and Southeast Asian countries today. First, we unpack the theory behind contribution analysis and how it is applied by Western evaluators then compare this with aspects of Confucianism. We then examine how the application of contribution analysis might be modified to take into account a Confucian worldview. Finally, we discuss how, in a world of globalized, complex societies, this approach could be used by evaluators to adapt evaluation methods to be congruent with the worldviews in the local context where an evaluation is occurring.

Exploring Use and Influence in Culturally Responsive Approaches to Evaluation: A Review of the Empirical Literature

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-215
Author(s):  
Jeremy Acree ◽  
Jill Anne Chouinard
Keyword(s):  
Moral Obligation ◽  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Environmental Concerns ◽  
Analytic Framework ◽  
Responsive Evaluation ◽  
Evaluation Practice ◽  
The Impact

Culturally responsive approaches to evaluation are emerging across diverse program and community contexts to address increasingly intractable social, economic, political, and environmental concerns. Despite the sense of urgency, responsibility, and moral obligation motivating the use of these approaches, however, empirical research on the implications of centering culture in evaluation practice remains scarce. In this article, we conduct a systematic review of empirical literature, applying the concepts of use and influence as an analytic frame to explore the impact of culturally responsive evaluation in North American contexts. Our findings highlight uses of evaluation which stem from findings and processes, as well as multidirectional and unintended consequences which are documented in empirical reflections and case studies. In our discussion, we critically reflect on our analytic framework, using the concepts, constitutive effects and sustained interactivity to broaden our understanding of the myriad ways evaluation affects programs, people, and society.

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