| Session Title: Emerging Practitioners in an Emerging Subfield: Vexing Issues, Opportunities and Lessons Learned |
| Multipaper Session 640 to be held in Hopkins Room on Friday, November 9, 3:35 PM to 4:20 PM |
| Sponsored by the Qualitative Methods TIG |
| Chair(s): |
| Jacqueline Copeland-Carson, Copeland Carson and Associates, jackiecc@aol.com |
| Discussant(s): |
| Michael Lieber, University of Illinois, Chicago, mdlieber@uic.edu |
| Abstract: Evaluation anthropology has emerged a transdiscipline blending the theories and methods of these two fields. This session will bring together an interdisciplinary group of established and new anthropological evaluators to explore the challenges faced working at the nexus of anthropology and evaluation. Organized around case examples, papers will address experiences translating anthropology for evaluation; managing the politics of evaluation anthropology projects; indigenous knowledge, diversity and equity in evaluation; as well as career development issues. |
| Translating Anthropology for Evaluation: An Anthropological Critique of A Framework for Understanding Poverty |
| Carol Hafford, James Bell Associates, hafford@jbassoc.com |
| This paper will provide an anthropological critique of 'A Framework for Understanding Poverty,' a training program that is currently in vogue with educators and human service professionals across the United States, as the panelist learned while conducting an evaluation on a neglect prevention program. The training contends that people in American society can be located in one of three social classes-poverty, middle class, and wealth-and advances the view that people in each of these 'cultures' are largely unaware of the 'hidden rules' of the others. According to this framework, impoverished families share a specific culture that is characterized by self-gratification and self-defeating behaviors that keep them entrenched in generational or situational poverty (e.g., valuing spending over thrift, living day-to-day rather than being future-oriented, etc.). To mitigate the pervasive influence of this 'culture of poverty,' educators, social workers, or pro bono attorneys must impart values and strategies that will enable their poor students and clients to function in mainstream institutions and relationships. 'A Framework for Understanding Poverty' has been criticized as a value-laden, deficit-oriented approach that reinforces gender, race, and classist stereotypes, and fails to take into consideration the causes of poverty or the systemic disparities that contribute to its reproduction. In joining these critical voices, this paper will revisit the limitations of the 'culture of poverty' concept from an anthropological perspective for those who evaluate human service programs and assess culturally competent approaches to service delivery and engagement. |
| Issues in Participatory Evaluation and Social Change: A Case Study From El Salvador |
| James G Huff Jr, Vanguard University, jhuff@vanguard.edu |
| While it may be axiomatic that participatory forms of program evaluation are beneficial to the varied stakeholders involved in community initiatives, less is understood about how such forms of evaluation generate cultural and social change. My aim in this paper is to begin to fill these gaps by critically reflecting upon my own work as an evaluation practitioner with a community development organization in rural El Salvador. Two principal questions will be considered in the paper. First, how do the various stakeholders engaged in a planned community intervention - and especially those who are members of the communities that are targeted for change - learn and then put into practice a participatory form of program evaluation? And second, what new conceptualizations of justice and notions of the social good are generated (and how might others be discarded or revalued) as community members engage in participatory program evaluation? A mini-case study of a program evaluation of a potable water project in Las Delicias, El Salvador will serve as the empirical backdrop upon which these questions will be addressed. In a brief, closing discussion I will critically reflect upon the challenges faced by the evaluation practitioner who is at once called upon to provide 'objective' input and to teach stakeholders about the 'value' of participatory program evaluation. |
| Research, Evaluation, and Program Data: The Politics of Information |
| Karen Snyder, Public Health, Seattle and King County, karen.snyder@metrokc.gov |
| The shift from academic researcher to contract evaluator involves understanding the many meanings of data, information, analysis, and reporting. An anthropological perspective helps tease out complex interactions of power and view situations from different angles. In this paper, I describe the process of obtaining access to quantitative and qualitative data needed for funder-required process and outcome evaluations in a community-based service agency. I used ethnographic techniques to understand the perspectives of the funder, project director, project staff, and agency management. Unlike much academic research, process evaluation requires recommending strategies for improving programs. In this case, the solution was framed around learning new skills: a curriculum was established on the principles of research, ownership of data, database and statistical software, privacy issues, data collection, entry, analysis, and interpretation. This strategy met the organization's core value of building capacity and honored the skills, abilities, and potential of the multi-cultural staff and management. |
| Building Evidence in Ethnographic Evaluation |
| Mary Odell Butler, Battelle Centers for Public Health Research and Evaluation, butlerm@battelle.org |
| Evaluators generally have come to understand the value of context-specific ethnographic approaches in evaluation. However, evaluation anthropologists are still beleaguered by beliefs on the part of clients and potential users that ethnographic data are interesting but not as rigorous as hard quantitative findings. This paper suggests methods that can be employed to present ethnographic results in a way that the linkage between data and evidence-building is clear and credible. These include demonstrable linkages between evaluation questions and proposed data collection, analytic methods that reflect the relative weight of findings to the population of users, and summary reports that can be easily disseminated and used. Examples from an evaluation of case management of tuberculosis in the US-Mexico border area will be used. |
| Current Opportunities and Challenges for Anthropologists Developing Evaluation Careers |
| Eve Pinsker, University of Illinois, Chicago, epinsker@uic.edu |
| An anthropologist working as an evaluator in the fields of public health and community development offers her perceptions of some current opportunities and challenges for anthropologists developing and seeking funding for evaluation projects. Opportunities include: 1) increased funding for translation research, which overlaps with evaluation research; 2) roles for anthropologists in training others in evaluation methods in the contexts of participatory evaluation and professional development; 3) evaluating programs aimed at increasing individual or organizational capacity to deal with cultural diversity. Challenges include 1) increased expectations for outcomes-based evaluation and combining qualitative with quantitative measures; 2) integrating anthropological approaches with program theory and logic models; 3) combining ethnographic methods with systems-thinking based approaches to evaluation, particularly in dealing with multiple-leveled phenomena (individual, organization, community). These challenges, if met, will also result in increased opportunities for anthropologist-evaluators, and contributions to both fields. |