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Effects of Photovoice: Civic Engagement Among Older Youth in Urban Communities
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| Presenter(s):
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| Larry Gant, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, lmgant@umich.edu
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| Kate Shimshock, University of Michigan, shimkate@umich.edu
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| Paula Allen-Meares, University of Illinois at Chicago, pameares@umich.edu
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| Leigh Smith, University of Michigan, mckleigh@umich.edu
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| Patricia Miller, University of Michigan, millerpa@umich.edu
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| Leslie A Hollingsworth, University of Michigan, lholling@umich.edu
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| Trina Shanks, University of Michigan, trwilli@umich.edu
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| Abstract:
Youth civic engagement is critical to many community empowerment initiatives. Photovoice is a popular empowerment technique for disenfranchised groups, including youth. The technique has little published empirical support. We assessed Photovoice as a youth mobilization project within the context of a ongoing community development initiative. We hypothesized that Photovoice participation would (a) improve students' interest in civic engagement and (b) have greater impact on older rather than younger adolescents. Thirty-three (33) youth (15-21 years of age) completed a Survey of Youth Engagement before and after Photovoice participation. We found a main effect for age, with youth 18 years of age and older scoring significantly higher than youth under 18 years of age. With a reasonably powered research design, effect size (ES) computations of the Photovoice intervention ranged from .942 - .964. In this study, Photovoice promotes significant changes in perceived civic engagement among older youth.
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Educators Evaluate! Using Evaluation Strategies to Create a Tool for School Personnel to Conduct Informal Formative Evaluations
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| Presenter(s):
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| Aarti Bellara, University of South Florida, abellara@mail.usf.edu
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| Abstract:
In this era of accountability, educators need to become evaluators. School personnel, non evaluators, need to be able to systematically conduct an informal, yet meaningful evaluation, formatively to continually assess the programs and training and their effectiveness in schools. This tool was created using a specific district's vision of student learning being the motivating force for all initiatives. Without having an extensive budget to conduct formal external evaluations, this tool serves as a medium for training trainers how to conduct internal evaluations of the programs they are implementing in schools. Teaching non-evaluators the key points in creating focused objectives, specific evaluation questions, realistic timelines and avenues for collecting data, techniques for analyzing and triangulating data, and tips for creating solutions for issues are the goals of this tool. Educators share information with the intent of creating life-long learners and this will help guide them to evaluate their efforts.
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Critical Theory and Program Evaluation in Context: We've Come a Long Way, Baby
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| Presenter(s):
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| Gregory Diggs, University of Colorado Denver, gregory.diggs@ucdenver.edu
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| Abstract:
Empowerment evaluation, participatory evaluation approaches and culturally responsive evaluations are among those approaches that are designed to include a variety of stakeholders in the evaluation endeavor. Deliberative Democratic principles House and Howe (1999) can improve program evaluation by including the voice of participants in more meaningful ways. One thing missing from 'the debate' about empowerment evaluation, is a deeper consideration of critical theories.
Critical scholarship, is often aimed at going beyond the inclusion of diverse voices...but to work for liberation or emancipation from oppression or discrimination.
While Vanderplaat (1995) places empowerment evaluation within a context of emancipatory research, other critical perspectives such as critical race theory and cultural violence are largely undefined.
This paper will provide additional insight regarding the application of critical theories in evaluation practice, particularly when programs have been designed to serve or benefit members of underserved communities.
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Taking a Feminist Stand(point) on Lingering Critiques of Empowerment Evaluation
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| Presenter(s):
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| Divya Bheda, University of Oregon, dbheda2uoregon.edu
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| Abstract:
Empowerment evaluation (EE) is underwritten by principles of participation, community ownership, and accountability -- which speak to evaluators and practitioners who are committed to promoting social justice, building organizational stakeholder evaluative capacity, and transforming their organizations in an inclusive and democratic manner. This approach to evaluation is not without its critics. Critics have raised serious concerns about this approach, from issues of bias and a lack of objectivity to questions about whether this EE should even be considered a legitimate evaluation approach. Although proponents of empowerment evaluation have offered responses to these critiques, concerns continue to linger. In this paper, I focus on the concerns raised around objectivity and bias in empowerment evaluation, and demonstrate how viewing these critiques through the lens of feminist /standpoint theory/ offers both a response to the lingering criticism, and a more robust framework to guide the work of empowerment evaluators.
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"Never wanted to be your boss": Operationalizing Empowerment Evaluation as Workers' Control
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| Presenter(s):
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| Michael Matteson, University of Wollongong, cenetista3637@hotmail.com
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| Abstract:
This paper is based on an empowerment evaluation carried out with program staff involved in a music therapy program for children with autism. Treating the program context as a workplace, it seemed that empowerment for program staff could be regarded as equivalent to workers' control in terms of the changes in power relations and decision-making that it implied. The multiple acts of micro decision-making by participants in the course of the evaluation distinguish empowerment evaluation from other approaches, such as deliberative democratic evaluation. In practice, empowerment is always operationalized in some way. Bradley Cousins has asked 'Would the real empowerment evaluation please stand up?' In times of mandated empowerment evaluations, with the danger of unconvinced evaluators 'evaluating to the test', empowerment evaluation may lose both its potential and some of its nature. Operationalizing empowerment as equivalent to workers' control distinguishes empowerment evaluation by tying it to a concept that demands emancipation in terms of changed power relations.
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