| Session Title: Perspectives and Practical Applications for Advancing Culturally Responsive Evaluation Practice |
| Multipaper Session 452 to be held in Avalon B on Thursday, Nov 3, 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM |
| Sponsored by the Multiethnic Issues in Evaluation TIG |
| Chair(s): |
| Michelle Jay, University of South Carolina, jaym@mailbox.sc.edu |
| Discussant(s): |
| Leslie Cooksy, University of Delaware, ljcooksy@udel.edu |
| Rodney Hopson, Duquesne University, hopson@duq.edu |
| Abstract: This session will serve as a primer to highlight the importance of developing thought leaders in the field of evaluation whose lived experience positions them to practice evaluation through a culturally responsive lens. In addition, the evolution of the Graduate Diversity Internship Program traineeship will be discussed touching on successes, opportunities, and challenges. The presenters will extract from interviews conducted with cohort participants, advisors, internship supervisors, and program leaders, as well as their own experiences on how the program has impacted their personal and career trajectories by: (1) increasing their capacity as researchers and evaluators; (2) enhancing their ability to incorporate culturally responsive practices; and, (3) empowering them to become culturally responsive evaluation (CRE) champions. Finally, the authors will review core competencies for championing CRE leadership, tenets for incorporating CRE, precursors for advancing CRE, and strategies for addressing challenges encountered by interns as change agents of CRE practice. |
| Championing Culturally Responsive Leadership for Evaluation Practice |
| Lisa Aponte-Soto, University of Illinois, Chicago, lapont2@uic.edu |
| Deborah Ling Grant, University of California at Los Angeles, deb.ling@ucla.edu |
| Frances Carter, Westat, FrancesCarter@westat.com |
| Soria Colomer, University of Georgia, soria.colomer@gmail.com |
| Johnavae Campbell, University of North Carolina, johnavae@email.unc.edu |
| Karen Anderson, Independent Consultant, kanderson.sw@gmail.com |
| This paper will discuss the importance of developing talent to champion culturally responsive thought leadership. Given the mission of the Graduate Education Diversity Internship Program (GEDIP), we will highlight the importance of seeking talented students of color for establishing the leadership pool to advance culturally responsive evaluation (CRE) practice. We will discuss our experiences in the leadership development process as GEDIP interns including training and skill building, teamwork, and service leadership. In addition, we will discuss how the GEDIP goes beyond imparting technical knowledge to mobilizing students of color with the tools to be adaptive agents of transformational CRE leadership critical to the field of evaluation. Moreover, we will review the necessary components for building the GEDIP capacity and sustainability. Finally, we will offer strategies for establishing CRE talent sourcing, leadership development and finding innovative ways to become CRE leaders through service. |
| The Power Ladies on Becoming Culturally Responsive Evaluators |
| Dymaneke Mitchell, National-Louis University, dawishfactor@yahoo.com |
| Lutheria Peters, Association for Medical Colleges, lutheria.n.peters@hotmail.com |
| Amber Golden, Florida A&M University, ambergt@mac.com |
| Hamida Jinnah-Ghelani, University of Georgia, hamidajinnah@gmail.com |
| During the 2005-2006 academic year, four female graduate students from different racial and ethnic minority groups embarked on their journey as the second cohort of the American Evaluation Association Graduate Evaluation Diversity Internship Program and became collectively known as "The Power Ladies." This presentation explores aspects of the internship program that have impacted their career trajectories and helped them be a voice for integrating culturally responsive practices in their current work. They will share their understanding of issues such as financial, administrative, and political constraints that affected the readiness of the evaluands' institutional culture and its consumers to embrace principles of evaluation and culturally responsive practices. They will discuss strategies used to address the challenges they faced. |
| Culturally Responsive Evaluation Practice: Evaluator Perspectives |
| Tamara Bertrand Jones, Florida State University, tbertrand@fsu.edu |
| Maurice Samuels, University of Chicago, mcsamuels@uchicago.edu |
| Full comprehension of how evaluation literature and evaluation practice intersect helps to ensure meaningful and useful evaluations that impact a diverse body of stakeholders, as well as identify lessons that can be learned to help improve evaluation training, practice, and evaluation research. Over the last two decades, evaluation discourse has centered utilization, evaluation's role in meeting the needs of program stakeholders, with emphasis on inclusion of stakeholders' concerns and values. These recent discussions have highlighted the need for changes in evaluation methodology. Not only in the framing of evaluation, but also execution in a given cultural context. This paper provides results of research conducted with Black evaluators about the practice of culturally responsive evaluation. The authors provide an in-depth example of a practical application of culturally responsive evaluation at work. We will present the opportunities, challenges, and the value-added in conducting culturally responsive evaluations. |
| Training, Mentoring, Networking & Practical Experience: Pillars for Building a Legacy of Culturally Competent Evaluators |
| Asma Ali, University of Illinois, Chicago, asmamali@yahoo.com |
| Wanda Casillas, Cornell University, wdc23@cornell.edu |
| Ricardo Gomez, National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, rgomez@nciia.org |
| Donna Parrish, Clark Atlanta University, donnadparrish@hotmail.com |
| Culturally Responsive Evaluation (CRE) is premised on reasoned discussions about the importance of understanding and awareness of cultural differences that influence and determine evaluation efforts. Additionally, CRE can increase validity and reliability of evaluation data as well as provide opportunities for self-reflection and social change (Hopson, 1998; Kirkhart, 2000; Lee, 2000). This discussion presents the results from in-depth interviews, with 7 interns of Legacy-- the fifth cohort of the Graduate Evaluation Diversity Internship Program (GEDIP), their advisors, internship supervisors, and program leaders all of whom were involved in the GEDIP from 2008-2009. In particular, this discussion will explore how the specific tenets of CRE were incorporated into the mentorship of interns as they grow into their future role as evaluators. Secondly, the findings will highlight the extent to which the GEDIP brought about changes in knowledge, attitudes, skills, and aspirations, which are well recognized precursors for change in evaluation practice. |
| Training Evaluators: What's Context Got to Do With It? |
| Nia K Davis, University of New Orleans, nkdavis@uno.edu |
| Situational context is a necessary factor in every evaluation. The contexts by which evaluators are introduced to the field have implications on intern training experiences. The focus of this presentation is to discuss the context in which members of the third cohort of the Graduate Education Diversity Internship were placed during the internship. This cohort of interns was the first to be separated into two types of placement sites, each yielding separate experiences for interns. This presentation will use concrete situations and examples to demonstrate how the intern's experiences contributed the internship's goals of developing: (a) a large pool of culturally diverse evaluators; (b) empirical work that is expanding the knowledge of culturally and contextually responsive evaluation; (c) interdisciplinary knowledge around evaluation in culturally diverse settings; (d) networks among novice and senior evaluation professionals, practitioners, and scholars; and (e) present a list of internship essentials for inclusion in evaluation internships. |