Putting It Into Practice: Educational Evaluators' Advice on Advancing Racial Equity and Justice

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

Abstract

1.Purpose
The growing body of literature that addresses social justice in evaluation largely provides theoretical considerations to guide evaluators’ efforts. Yet evaluators also need practical guidance to inform their work to advance racial equity. Therefore, we sought to empirically document lessons learned by equity-and justice-focused evaluators who work with BIPOC communities in educational contexts and the advice they would offer other educational evaluators. We posed the following research question: What advice do equity-focused evaluators offer for helping educational programs advance racial equity?

2.Theoretical framework
This study was grounded in interpretivism, a qualitative research framework that recognizes that reality is socially constructed with multiple meanings and focuses on fostering contextualized meaning and understanding lived experiences (Mathison, 2005; Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). As Merriam and Tisdell (2015) note, a qualitative research process with an interpretivist lens focuses on understanding how people interpret their experiences and the associated meaning given to those experiences. Thus, we employed an interpretivist qualitative methodology to understand evaluators’ experiences working to advance racial equity in evaluation practice and the resulting advice they would offer other evaluators.

3.Methods
Data from this study is drawn from a larger qualitative research program focused on the experiences of evaluators who conduct equity-and justice focused evaluations of programs and initiatives with BIPOC communities. Although the larger study contains 29 semi-structured interviews, for the purposes of this paper we only examined 21 of those interviews because participants indicated working in educational contexts. Two researchers inductively analyzed each transcript (Miles, Huberman & Saldaña, 2019). Codes were then combined codes into categories based on similarities and frequency (Ryan & Bernard, 2003; Saldaña, 2020) and used the categories build themes.

4.Findings
Our preliminary findings showcase advice from evaluators seeking to assist communities and programs in advancing racial equity and justice. For example, one participant suggested evaluators engage in internal work by locating themselves using reflective questions such as “what do you bring to the table? how much are you willing to invest? How much are you willing to put on the line?” Another respondent recommended transparency “about what you can and cannot do...what you can or cannot control...and at what level”. Many evaluators in our sample discussed the importance of listening with the intent to learn “so [as] not to fit something into a category that you suspect is there” and having depth of knowledge about the evaluation context. Additionally, our findings highlight the role of evaluators as co-designers that aim to embrace dignity as they inquire, evaluate, reflect, and advise about the possibilities of advancing equity and justice in different program contexts.

5.Significance
Evaluation can be an important driver in creating change for communities of color (Neubauer, et al., 2020). Central to this idea is the role of evaluators and their ability to both inform and contribute to change (McBride, Casillas, & LoPiccolo, 2020). Our findings offer practical approaches for how evaluators can begin working to build a more equitable future that involves internal reflection and ways of engaging with stakeholders.

Authors

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

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

• Xinru Yan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  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