Date: Saturday, December 27, 2025
Hi, I’m Jacqueline Corum (she/her), a Cooperative Extension evaluator at the University of Kentucky and graduate student in the Educational Research Methods and Policy Studies program.
In a previous role, I facilitated a grassroots community and leadership development program at the Brushy Fork Leadership Institute called “People Ready Communities.” This program supported diverse teams of community members as they led projects aimed at improving their communities’ “readiness” to be places where all residents experience safety, acceptance, inclusion, and belonging. We did this through capacity building; enhancing local leaders’ ability to make data-informed, collaborative decisions that supported the planning and implementation of short-term community development projects based on their unique local needs and context.
This grassroots model informed my work this semester as I conducted interviews and focus groups exploring how LGBTQIA+ folks in Lexington, Kentucky experience and navigate feelings of safety and belonging in their daily lives. I used this qualitative research development opportunity to improve both technical skill and academic knowledge through incorporating theories on intersectionality, microaggressions, belonging, and aging in place to better understand contributing factors.
Despite growing availability and pressures to use AI in qualitative research, I was cautious to use AI to support data coding and analysis because of AI’s tendency to replicate bias and oversimplify cultural nuance and complex concepts. Thus, I coded the data without using AI, reflecting throughout the coding process on my positionality as a researcher and member of the community I am studying. I believe I captured thematic elements relating to queer culture that AI would not represent as authentically.
How can we leverage evaluation to foster community where all members feel safe and that they belong?
While Lexington, Kentucky boasts progressive LGBTQIA+ policies, as demonstrated by the city’s 100% Municipal Equality Index score, I believe there are opportunities to deepen our understanding of factors that facilitate and mitigate LGBTQIA+ safety and belonging and their impacts on community capitals – social, cultural, natural, human, financial, political and built (Emery & Flora, 2006). There’s knowledge to be gained through mixed methods research studying relationships between local systems, policies, practices, LGBTQIA+ community members’ experiences of safety and belonging, and community capitals.
If you are interested in learning more or joining my work, please reach out to me.
The American Evaluation Association is hosting LGBTQ+ Voices in Evaluation TIG Week with our colleagues in the LGBTQ+ Voices in Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our LGBTQ+ Voices in Evaluation TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.