Biopolitical power in evaluation research with transnational migrant youth

• In Event: Program evaluation in diverse contexts

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.

In an effort to raise issues of power in equity-oriented evaluation on transnational migrant youth, the paper will have three parts. First, we problematize equity-oriented evaluations, delineating evaluation in CIE and US-based contexts that make claims to equity, specifically when working with migrant youth. Migrants are a particularly unique group because they are simultaneously subject to being considered threats to economic and national security or burdens to the state (Author, 2018) while also being in need of the state’s “pathological care” (Heidbrink, 2014; 2018). Then, we argue for focus on the transnational nature of migrants rather than focusing just on particular refugees in particular countries. Second, we discuss what we observe as theoretical problems regarding the purpose and underlying assumptions of evaluation--largely that they always are intended to be and do good. In this section, we discuss how evaluation functions administratively to expand and produce statistical knowledge about a population through methodological techniques aimed to manipulate and manage groups (Foucault, 1994). In our current evaluation work, transnational migrant youth are produced as “good students” who can “belong” to the local community if they show growth and improvement in relation to language-learning and becoming integratable (Author, 2018). Their welfare and productivity are intertwined with the production of knowledge about them in the evaluation process, and simultaneously the “public interest” is served by ensuring these “newcomers” are managed (Foucault, 1994, p. 242). Additionally, we call attention to how evaluation maintains an underlying comparison that needs unpacking. Further, we argue there exists a proliferation of comparison(s) and the production of knowledge about groups through “an emergent set of technologies--technologies that replace theory, reflexivity, and critique and threaten to leave us with a sterilized and atrophied comparative education” (Sobe, 2018, p. 330). The underlying assumptions of evaluation are educationalist and interventionist and thus discourses of “objectivity,” and the need for expertise are called upon in evaluation practice (Porter, 2001). Finally, we draw on data from a current U.S.-based evaluation to highlight moments of disruption in evaluation practice that might counter the production of knowledge about transnational migrant youth, related to the survey development and youths’ cultural elaborations of belonging in relation to the ‘intervention’ they are receiving to increase their belonging.

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. The significance of this work is two-fold. First, it expands the literature on evaluation and monitoring in CIE research by centering power in the design and process of evaluation rather than reflecting on power dynamics retroactively as an apology. Second, by calling attention to the simultaneous use of data to create knowledge about particular groups and leveraging discourses of equity, we start to unpack moments of disruption in a current U.S.-based equity-oriented evaluation project on transnational migrant youth. We ultimately 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