| Session Title: Serving Elites and Civil Society: Evaluation Imaginaries in a Globalized World |
| Expert Lecture Session 899 to be held in Centennial Section F on Saturday, Nov 8, 3:05 PM to 3:50 PM |
| Sponsored by the Theories of Evaluation TIG |
| Chair(s): |
| Timothy Cash, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, tjcash2@uiuc.edu |
| Presenter(s): |
| Thomas Schwandt, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, tschwand@uiuc.edu |
| Abstract: Current globalizing influences profoundly challenge Western, Anglo-American evaluation imaginaries. We adopt Charles Taylor's notion of imagination, which refers to the ways in which people envision their social existence, and extend that understanding of imagination to the practice of evaluation. Our conception of globalization, owing much to world polity theory, comprises a worldview where today's world culture, whose origins lie in the Western European Enlightenment tradition, create and shape two existing and competing Western, Anglo-American evaluation imaginaries, one that espouses an ethic of service to elites and the other an ethic of service to civil society. This article argues that the globalizing influences on evaluation expose both the strengths and weaknesses of these two evaluation imaginaries. As a welcome result, these globalizing influences on evaluation contribute to a shift away from simply debating methods and models and towards a meaningful dialogue of the moral-ethical concerns surrounding the practice of evaluation. |