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'True Knowledge Confers Humility': People of Color and Indigenous People in Evaluation
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| Presenter(s):
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| Srividhya Shanker, University of Minnesota, shan0133@umn.edu
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| Abstract:
It is overwhelmingly programs focused on 'fixing' communities of color and indigenous communities, rather than on 'fixing' the systems that created and reinforce inequities, that are the subject of evaluation efforts. This paper proposes critical inquiry around two research questions:
1) How do evaluation professionals portray communities of color and indigenous communities in their conference presentations and materials?
2) How do people of color and indigenous people experience the evaluation trainings and professional development opportunities in which they participate?
Answering these questions by reflecting on our discourse (e.g., the 2004 cultural reading of AEA's Program Evaluation Standards) and by seeking people's observations and impressions (e.g., N. L. Smith's 2002 AJE article entitled 'International Students' Reflections on the Cultural Embeddedness of Evaluation Theory,' p. 481-92) would help members of the evaluation community develop, implement, and evaluate interventions appropriate for increasing the racial/ ethnic diversity of evaluation practitioners as well as the cultural competence of evaluators more generally.
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Myths of Assessing Cultural Context in Evaluation
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| Presenter(s):
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| Yun-shiuan Chen, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, viola.y.s.chen@gmail.com
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| Abstract:
A case study of an after-school tutoring program for 'socioeconomically disadvantaged' and 'bicultural' students in a remote area of Taiwan, addresses two issues for evaluators to consider: cultural context and how we describe culture.
The Taiwanese culture, wherein the program is situated, is a complex quilt interwoven with the threads and patches of stakeholders, program, time, space, and historical heritage. To understand this unique cultural context is both a challenge for a standard, well-intended after-school tutoring program to adapt to, and for evaluators who struggle to understand it, without possessing the shared, lived experiences of the participants.
Further, this research questions the way institutions "name" their service recipients. Institutional language not only neglects to serve, but also often lacks a language to capture the nuanced and hybrid cultural identities of its students. Might evaluators who simplify cultural context also be unconsciously enhancing the misplaced naming power of the institution?
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