What Do We Mean? Conceptualizations of Racial Equity

• In Event: Toward Racial Equity and Justice in Educational Evaluation: Research on Conceptualizations, Criteria, and Evaluator Practices

Abstract

1.Purpose
To work toward a more equitable future, evaluators must first understand what racial equity is (and isn’t). Conceptualizations of racial equity shape how evaluators interact with communities, guide how they enact the evaluation process, and inform the lines of inquiry they pursue when gathering and analyzing data. Limited research examines the conceptualization(s) of racial equity evaluators encounter and their influence on evaluation practice. Additionally, a key responsibility—and challenge—in evaluation is navigating stakeholders’ varying value stances (Greene, 1997; House & Howe, 1999). There is a need for additional empirical literature that explores the ways in which evaluators engage diverse stakeholder value stances to advance perspectives like racial equity (Hall, Ahn, & Greene, 2012). To address these gaps, this paper investigated: (1) How is racial equity conceptualized in evaluation practice when working with BIPOC communities? and (2) How do evaluators navigate differing stakeholder value positions about racial equity?

2.Theoretical framework
This study utilized a qualitative research design grounded in interpretivism, an orientation that promotes contextualized meaning, the belief that reality is socially constructed with multiple meanings and aims to offer understanding for lived experiences (Mathison, 2005; Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). Mathison (2005) notes that interpretivism “promotes plural perspectives in evaluations relying on qualitative approaches and natural settings”. Thus, qualitative methods were utilized to understand racial equity conceptualizations and the ways in which evaluators attend to it in evaluation practice with BIPOC communities.

3. Methods
We conducted 29 semi-structured interviews with evaluators working in varying substantive areas including education, health, community, and government. Two researchers analyzed each transcript, applying both a priori codes and inductively derived codes that emerged from the data (Miles, Huberman & Saldaña, 2019). Once codes were created for each transcript and included in the codebook, similar codes were combined into categories based on similarity and frequency (Ryan & Bernard, 2003; Saldaña, 2020). Those categories were then used to build themes.

4. Findings
The following findings have emerged regarding the first research question. First, many conceptualizations of racial equity considered the (1) inclusion of BIPOC community members, (2) personal and professional stance of the evaluator, and (3) program’s context, understanding, and readiness to “move from a place of talk to action”. For example, multiple evaluators spoke about differing understandings of racial equity by stakeholders within an organization. As a result, without a unified program conceptualization, the program was challenged in “the doing of racial equity” and thus tended to perpetuate problems. Second, evaluators’ conceptualizations revealed how addressing racial equity is a moral imperative in their work. As such, the framing in the evaluation literature around “values” did not adequately capture their efforts to advance racial equity. Instead, there is evidence of an inherent desire and need to challenge the status quo especially for BIPOC communities.

5. Significance
Our findings indicate varying definitions of racial equity that are contextual and multilayered, rather than a single conceptualization. Continued analysis will reveal strategies evaluators use to aid stakeholders in operationalizing racial equity and how evaluators navigate differing stakeholder stances.

Authors

• Cherie Avent, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Presenting Author

• Rebecca M. Teasdale, University of Illinois at Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author

• Xinru Yan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ceily Moore, University of Illinois at Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author

• María B. Serrano-Abreu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Non-Presenting Author