Demystifying power relations in evaluation research with transnational migrant youth: A framework for equity

• In Event: Evidence-based decision making in education
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Global migration: biopolitics, interruptions, and trends in theory and method

Proposal

The objective of this primarily theoretical paper is to engage previous literature on evaluation in relation to migrants and education and migration, and to theorize and problematize power relations in equity-oriented evaluations on transnational migrant youth while using the authors’ current evaluation project as evidence. While there exists a strong presence in comparative and international education (CIE) on monitoring and evaluation in global contexts and educational reconstruction in conflict-ridden sites, this research often excludes perspectives of transnational migrant youth, and takes on a deficit-based approach toward educational improvement in-country (Monaghan & King, 2018; Winthrop & Kirk, 2008). Thus, this project focuses on migrants as transnational subjects in U.S.-based contexts--an underrepresented topic in CIE—who are part of evaluation projects. Rather than considering how western models of evaluation are implemented and travel globally for purposes of accountability and educational improvement, this project has two aims: (a) to offer a critical review of the evaluation literature--both CIE research and broader equity-focused evaluation research--in order to expose assumptions of how power and the need for improvement are entangled in evaluation processes but often remain invisible, particularly when discourses of equity for educational improvement are leveraged; (b) to utilize a framework of biopolitical governmentality (Foucault, 1994; 2008) to theorize power as a central concept in evaluation policy and practice, linking evaluation to the categorization and control of transnational migrant youth. To this end, the paper shares data from a current U.S.—based evaluation of increasing belonging for transnational migrant youth. Utilizing the framework of biopolitical governmentality to critique evaluation processes and practices, we hope to disrupt the deficit-based approach to evaluation. Our current evaluation project demonstrates how an asset-based approach to increasing belonging for transnational migrant youth in a U.S.—based context encourages productive yet troubling moments in the evaluation process. The implications of this project call attention to how evaluation--as a methodological practice-- is a process of truth-telling about groups (Kuntz, 2015), and we must consider the ethics of this practice in order to advocate and serve marginalized groups. We argue for such productive disruptions in evaluation work in order to construct a transnational framework for evaluation that builds upon youths’ transnational experiences of belonging and identity in order to advocate for them.

Authors

• Sophia Rodriguez, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

• Jeremy Acree, University of North Carolina, Greensboro