THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE EVALUATION (CRE) Maurice Samuels, Ph.D. Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education at the University of Chicago Erika D. Taylor, Ph.D. Department of Research and Evaluation Prince George’s County (MD) Public Schools

Introduction “Evaluation practices that are of, for, by, and with us.” (Kawakami, Aton, Cram,. Lai, & Porima, 2008, p. 222)

Culture and Evaluation  Evaluations sensitized to culture and context are known as: Culturally responsive Culturally competent Multicultural Cross-cultural

Comprehensive Description of Culture (Chouinard and Cousins, 2009) Aesthetic Ethnographic Symbolic Ecological

Framework for Culturally Responsive Evaluation (CRE)  Context  “The totality of the environment where the evaluation takes place" (Thomas, 2004, p. 13).  “The setting (time and place) and broader environment in which the focus of the evaluation (evaluand) is located” (Rog, 2009).

Theories of CRE  Greene (2006)  Democracy  Social change  Inclusion  Hopson (2010)  Decolonizing frameworks for indigenous people  Critical theories  Epistemologies of race

Practice of CRE (Stake, 2004; Frierson, Hood, & Hughes, 2002; Thomas, 2004)  Stake’s responsive evaluation  Recognizes several dimensions  Cultural experience of the evaluator

The Theory and Practice of CRE  CRE theories challenge mainstream paradigms and adopt a strengths-based approach to evaluation design.  CRE practices ask questions that seek to empower communities through their own perspectives.  Challenges remain in terms of shaping CRE in the larger context of the field of evaluation.

Questions & Comments

References  Chouinard, J., & Cousins, B. (2009). A review and synthesis of current research on cross-cultural evaluation. American Journal of Evaluation, 30(4),  Hood, S., (2009). The relevance of culture in evaluation institute: Meaningful evaluation in Native American culture. In K. Ryan & B. Cousins (Eds.), International Handbook on Evaluation. Thousand Oaks: Sage.  Frierson, T., Hood, S., & Hughes, G. (2002). A guide to conducting culturally responsive evaluations. In The 2002 user-friendly handbook for project evaluation. (NSF publication No ). Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation.  Greene, J. C. (2006).Evaluation, Democracy, and Social Change. In I. Shaw, J. Greene. & M. Mark (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Evaluation (pp ). Thousand Oaks: Sage.  Kawakami, A. J., Aton, K., Cram, F., Lai, M. K., & Porima, L. (2008). Improving the practice of evaluation through indigenous values and methods: Decolonizing evaluation practice—returning the gaze. In N. L. Smith & P. R. Brandon (Eds.), Fundamental Issues in Evaluation (pp ). New York: The Guilford Press.  Hopson, R. (2009). Reclaiming knowledge at the margins: Culturally responsive evaluation in the current evaluation moment. In K. Ryan & B. Cousins (Eds.), International Handbook of Evaluation. Thousand Oaks: Sage.  Samuels, M. & Ryan, K. (2011). Grounding Evaluations in Culture. American Journal of Evaluation, 32(2),  SenGupta, S., Hopson, R., & Thompson-Robinson, M. (2004). Cultural competence in evaluation: An overview. In M. Thompson- Robinson, R. Hopson, & S. SenGupta (Eds.), In search of cultural competence in evaluation: Toward principle and practice. New Directions for Evaluation (pp. 5–19). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.  Thomas, V. (2004). Building a contextually responsive evaluation framework: Lesson from working with urban school interventions. In V. Thomas & F. Stevens (Eds.), Co-constructing a contextually responsive evaluation framework: The talent development model of school reform: New directions for evaluation (No. 101, pp. 3-23). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Contact Information Maurice Samuels Research and Evaluation Associate The Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education at the University of Chicago Erika D. Taylor Evaluation Specialist Department of Research and Evaluation Prince George’s County (Maryland) Public Schools