Evaluation for an Equitable Society
Evaluation for an Equitable Society

Author: Stewart I. Donaldson

Publisher: IAP

Published: 2016-04-01

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 1681234459

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Governments and organizations of all shapes and sizes espouse values of equity and social justice. Yet, there are many examples of unfair social arrangements and employment conditions, dysfunctional government practices, and growing income inequality in both developed and developing countries worldwide. The profession and transdiscipline of evaluation is well equipped to address issues of inequality and social injustice, but until recently has been much more focused on primary stakeholder and donor satisfaction (being as useful as possible to funders of interventions and evaluations) and accountability concerns. The authors in this volume challenge the field of evaluation to become more concerned about using evaluation to develop more equitable organizations, governments, and societies. Leading evaluation theorists and practitioners including Michael Scriven, Jennifer Greene, Thomas Schwandt, Emily Gates, Sandra Mathison, Karen Kirkhart, Saville Kushner, Lois-Ellin Datta, Ernest House, Robert Stake, Patricia Rogers, Robert Picciotto and Stewart Donaldson, provide a range of visions for how evaluation can play a much larger role in facilitating social justice across the globe. Evaluation for an Equitable Society will be of great interest to evaluation practitioners, students and scholars. It will be of interest to those teaching and taking introductory evaluation courses, as well as advanced courses focused on improving evaluation theory and practice.

Visionary Evaluation for a Sustainable, Equitable Future
Visionary Evaluation for a Sustainable, Equitable Future

Author: Beverly Parsons

Publisher: IAP

Published: 2020-01-01

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 1641138351

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Take a journey to 2030 where Visionary Evaluatives abound and link with one another in actively bringing about a sustainable, equitable future. Utilizing a creative storytelling approach, Visionary Evaluation for a Sustainable, Equitable Future brings forward the centrality of values in conjunction with the role of evaluation in building a future of well-being for people, nature, and planet. Visionary Evaluatives are guided by six principles. Those principles highlight a commitment to equity and the sustainability of nature as core values. They emphasize an orientation of humility, compassion, and transparency as Visionary Evaluatives engage with others in a world of living, entangled systems with both obvious and hidden intersectionalities. They require Visionary Evaluatives to engage in deep praxis—mindful and challenging reflection on what is being learned through the intersection of values, iterative action and inquiry, theory, outcomes, and vision. A diverse group of chapter authors share their wisdom through envisioning 2030 and what it might mean to move in the world applying aspects of the Visionary Evaluative Principles. Through Visionary Evaluation for a Sustainable, Equitable Future, you will learn about how you can contribute to a sustainable, equitable future not only in evaluations, as either users or practitioners, but also in your daily actions and lives. Praise for Visionary Evaluation for a Sustainable, Equitable Future What might the world be like if it was inhabited by people imbued with evaluation? Here's a very interesting exploration of such a world. And it will additionally enrich your thinking about how to vote in 2020. Michael Scriven Founder, Faster Forward Fund The core values and principles of visionary evaluatives read too good to be true: envisioning a world of humility, sustainability, equity, compassion, respect, understanding, and engaging deeply, toward iterative action. What a tall order and request this book is making for those of us in the field of evaluation! Bravo to the authors for pushing us. Their book is compelling and futuristic, written as a story that helps us imagine and re-image our field, our lives, and our world. Rodney Hopson Professor, University of Illinois—Urbana Champaign A fascinating journey into the future. The heroes, “Visionary Evaluatives", catalyze forces including the UN Sustainable Development Goals movement. In their innovative blending of evaluation designs and daily living habits, the heroes demonstrate the strong beliefs in the value of the sustainability of the planet and equity for all its inhabitants. Deborah Rugg President, Evaluation Consultants LLC; Former Chair, UN Evaluation Group Humanity's current trajectory on Earth is unsustainable. Transformation is needed at every level and in every arena of action. The alternative may be no future at all. This book and its Visionary Evaluation Principles envisions evaluation as part of the transformation. Embrace the vision. Act on it. How? Start by reading Visionary Evaluation. Michael Quinn Patton Author of Blue Marble Evaluation

Continuing the Journey to Reposition Culture and Cultural Context in Evaluation Theory and Practice
Continuing the Journey to Reposition Culture and Cultural Context in Evaluation Theory and Practice

Author: Stafford Hood

Publisher: IAP

Published: 2014-12-01

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 1623969379

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Racial, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity has become of global importance in places where many never would have imagined. Increasing diversity in the U.S., Europe, Africa, New Zealand, and Asia strongly suggests that a homogeneity-based focus is rapidly becoming an historical artifact. Therefore, culturally responsive evaluation (CRE) should no longer be viewed as a luxury or an option in our work as evaluators. The continued amplification of racial, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity and awareness among the populations of the U.S. and other western nations insists that social science researchers and evaluators inextricably engage culturally responsive approaches in their work. It is unacceptable for most mainstream university evaluation programs, philanthropic agencies, training institutes sponsored by federal agencies, professional associations, and other entities to promote professional evaluation practices that do not attend to CRE. Our global demographics are a reality that can be appropriately described and studied within the context of complexity theory and theory of change (e.g., Stewart, 1991; Battram, 1999). And this perspective requires a distinct shift from “simple” linear cause-effect models and reductionist thinking to include more holistic and culturally responsive approaches. The development of policy that is meaningfully responsive to the needs of traditionally disenfranchised stakeholders and that also optimizes the use of limited resources (human, natural, and financial) is an extremely complex process. Fortunately, we are presently witnessing developments in methods, instruments, and statistical techniques that are mixed methods in their paradigm/designs and likely to be more effective in informing policymaking and decision-making. Culturally responsive evaluation is one such phenomenon that positions itself to be relevant in the context of dynamic international and national settings where policy and program decisions take place. One example of a response to address this dynamic and need is the newly established Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment (CREA) in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. CREA is an outgrowth of the collective work and commitments of a global community of scholars and practitioners who have contributed chapters to this edited volume. It is an international and interdisciplinary evaluation center that is grounded in the need for designing and conducting evaluations and assessments that embody cognitive, cultural, and interdisciplinary diversity so as to be actively responsive to culturally diverse communities and their aspirations. The Center’s purpose is to address questions, issues, theories, and practices related to CRE and culturally responsive educational assessment. Therefore, CREA can serve as a vehicle for our continuing discourse on culture and cultural context in evaluation and also as a point of dissemination for not only the work that is included in this edited volume, but for the subsequent work it will encourage.

Democratic Evaluation and Democracy
Democratic Evaluation and Democracy

Author: Donna Podems

Publisher: IAP

Published: 2017-02-01

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1681237903

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Democratic evaluation brings a way of thinking about evaluation’s role in society and in particular, its role in strengthening social justice. Yet the reality of applying it, and what happens when it is applied particularly outside the West, is unclear. Set in South Africa, a newly formed democracy in Southern Africa, the book affords an in-depth journey that immerses a reader into the realities of evaluation and its relation to democracy. The book starts with the broader introductory chapters that set the scene for more detailed ones which bring thorough insights into national government, local government, and civil societies’ experience of evaluation, democratic evaluation and their understanding of how it contributes to strengthening democracy (or not). A teaching case, the book concludes by providing guiding questions that encourage reflection, discussion and learning that ultimately aims to inform practice and theory.

Using Equity Audits to Create Equitable and Excellent Schools
Using Equity Audits to Create Equitable and Excellent Schools

Author: Linda Skrla

Publisher: Corwin Press

Published: 2009-05-05

Total Pages: 153

ISBN-13: 145220831X

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Use the power of equity audits to help eliminate achievement gaps and educational bias! Grounded solidly in theory and the use of data, this resource provides practical, easy-to-implement strategies for effectively using equity audits to ensure a high-quality education for all students, regardless of socio-economic class. Readers will discover how to increase equity awareness at school and district levels and remedy inequalities in teacher quality, program design, and student achievement by using: A set of “inequity indicators” for evaluating schools, generating essential data, and identifying problem areas Nine skill sets for improved equity-oriented teaching Charts, graphs, and support materials that can be customized for specific settings

Outcome Harvesting
Outcome Harvesting

Author: Ricardo Wilson-Grau

Publisher: IAP

Published: 2018-11-01

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 1641133945

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Are you a grant maker, manager or evaluator who must assess your work to improve as well as be accountable for the use of resources and results? Does the project, program or organization you fund, manage or evaluate contend with substantial uncertainty about what to do and what will be the results? Do you thus experience constant change and unexpected and unforeseeable actors and factors in your intervention? Do you need to know what you are achieving and how in real time? And therefore, do you seek an alternative to conventional monitoring and evaluation of social change results? If yes, then you are the audience for this book. Beginning in 2002, working closely with co-evaluators and commissioners of evaluations, the author developed Outcome Harvesting to enable evaluators, grant makers, and managers to identify, formulate, verify, and make sense of changes that interventions have influenced in a broad range of cutting–edge innovation and development projects and programs around the world. Over these years, he led Outcome Harvesting evaluative exercises involving almost 500 non-governmental organizations, networks, government agencies, funding agencies, community-based organizations, research institutes and university programs. In over fifty evaluations, with forty co-evaluators he has harvested thousands of outcomes on six continents. Outcome Harvesting has proven useful in evaluations of a great diversity of initiatives: human rights advocacy, political, economic and environmental advocacy, arts and culture, health systems, information and communication technology, conflict and peace, water and sanitation, taxonomy for development, violence against women, rural development, organic agriculture, participatory democracy, waste management, public sector reform, good governance, eLearning, social accountability, and business competition, amongst others. In this book, the author explains the steps of Outcome Harvesting and how to customize them according to the nine underlying principles. He shares his experience and gives practical advice on how to work with Outcome Harvesting and remain true to its essential features.

Assessment, Equity, and Opportunity to Learn
Assessment, Equity, and Opportunity to Learn

Author: Pamela A. Moss

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2008-04-07

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1139470566

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Providing all students with a fair opportunity to learn (OTL) is perhaps the most pressing issue facing U.S. education. Moving beyond conventional notions of OTL – as access to content, often content tested; access to resources; or access to instructional processes – the authors reconceptualize OTL in terms of interaction among learners and elements of their learning environments. Drawing on socio-cultural, sociological, psychometric, and legal perspectives, this book provides historical critique, theory and principles, and concrete examples of practice through which learning, teaching, and assessment can be re-envisioned to support fair OTL for all students. It offers educators, researchers, and policy analysts new to socio-cultural perspectives an engaging introduction to fresh ideas for conceptualizing, enhancing, and assessing OTL; encourages those who already draw on socio-cultural resources to focus attention on OTL and assessment; and nurtures collaboration among members of discourse communities who have rarely engaged one another's work.

Engagement for Equitable Outcomes
Engagement for Equitable Outcomes

Author: Kathryn Newcomer

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 9781538134511

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Engagement for Equitable Outcomes provides practical suggestions for practitioners addressing urgent social problems and reducing inequities in their communities. Newcomer, Wilson, and Brown offer approaches and models customized to local conditions and equity-focused guidance for innovating and adapting encouraging interventions. Their approach stresses intentional end-user engagement and collaboration, including a five-step Data and Engagement for Equitable, Measurable Outcomes Model: 1) inclusively collaborating to prioritize equitable outcomes; 2) identifying and developing promising interventions; 3) engaging and adapting to implement customized interventions; 4) scaling interventions for maximum impact; and 5) sustaining and improving equity-focused programming. The authors provide road maps, check lists, insights, and practical tips for navigating these five essential practices. Ultimately, this book is designed to enhance the knowledge, skills, and perspectives of policy makers, researchers, practitioners, and citizens interested in addressing urgent social problems with sustainable, equitable results.

Impact Evaluation in Practice, Second Edition
Impact Evaluation in Practice, Second Edition

Author: Paul J. Gertler

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2016-09-12

Total Pages: 444

ISBN-13: 1464807809

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The second edition of the Impact Evaluation in Practice handbook is a comprehensive and accessible introduction to impact evaluation for policy makers and development practitioners. First published in 2011, it has been used widely across the development and academic communities. The book incorporates real-world examples to present practical guidelines for designing and implementing impact evaluations. Readers will gain an understanding of impact evaluations and the best ways to use them to design evidence-based policies and programs. The updated version covers the newest techniques for evaluating programs and includes state-of-the-art implementation advice, as well as an expanded set of examples and case studies that draw on recent development challenges. It also includes new material on research ethics and partnerships to conduct impact evaluation. The handbook is divided into four sections: Part One discusses what to evaluate and why; Part Two presents the main impact evaluation methods; Part Three addresses how to manage impact evaluations; Part Four reviews impact evaluation sampling and data collection. Case studies illustrate different applications of impact evaluations. The book links to complementary instructional material available online, including an applied case as well as questions and answers. The updated second edition will be a valuable resource for the international development community, universities, and policy makers looking to build better evidence around what works in development.

Evaluation in Today’s World
Evaluation in Today’s World

Author: Veronica G. Thomas

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Published: 2020-08-27

Total Pages: 746

ISBN-13: 1544348193

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Recipient of a 2021 Most Promising New Textbook Award from the Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA) Evaluation in Today’s World: Respecting Diversity, Improving Quality, and Promoting Usability is a timely and comprehensive textbook that guides students, practitioners, and users of evaluations in understanding evaluation purposes, theories, methodologies, and challenges within today’s sociocultural and political context. Veronica G. Thomas and Patricia B. Campbell include discussions of evaluation history, frameworks, models, types, planning, and methods, through a social justice, diversity, and inclusive lens. The authors focus on ethics in diverse cultural contexts, help readers understand how social problems and programs get politicized and, sometimes, framed through a racialized lens, show how to engage stakeholders in the evaluation process, and communicate results in culturally appropriate ways. Included with this title: The password-protected Instructor Resource Site (formally known as SAGE Edge) offers access to all text-specific resources, including a test bank and editable, chapter-specific PowerPoint® slides.