The Role of Culture and Cultural Context in Evaluation

A Mandate for Inclusion, the Discovery of Truth and Understanding

Edited by:
Stafford Hood, Arizona State University
Henry Frierson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Rodney Hopson, George Mason University

A volume in the series: Evaluation and Society. Editor(s): Stewart I. Donaldson, Claremont Graduate University. Katrina L. Bledsoe, Education Development Center.

Published 2005

This volume seeks to address select questions drawn from the matrix of the complex issues related to culturally responsive evaluation. We ask, should evaluation be culturally responsive? Is the field heading in the right direction in its attempt to become more culturally responsive? We ask, what is culturally responsive evaluation today and what might it become tomorrow?

This edited volume does not promise to deliver answers to all, most, or even many of the complex answers facing the evaluation community regarding the role of culture and cultural context in evaluative theory and practice. This is not a scientific undertaking. We are not ready for concerns with prediction, explanation or control. We are ready for serious explorations, however. Even if the evaluation community cannot articulate the necessary and sufficient conditions for a culturally relevant evaluation it does know several of the desiderata. Our concern and the direction of this volume has been reflections of evaluation theory, history, and practice within the context of culture with illustrative examples.

CONTENTS
Introduction: This is Where We Stand. Stafford Hood, Rodney Hopson, and Henry Frierson. Evaluators as Stewards of the Public Good. Jennifer C. Greene. Through a Cultural Lens: Reflections on Validity and Theory in Evaluation. Karen E. Kirkhart. Persuasive Language, Responsive Design: A Framework for Interculturally Responsive Evaluation. Melvin Hall and Denice Ward Hood. Promoting Culturally Reliable and Valid Evaluation Practice in Education. Sharon Nelson-Barber, Elise Trumbull, Joan LaFrance, and Sofia Aburto. An Untold Story in Evaluation Roots: Reid E. Jackson and His Contributions Towards Culturally Responsive Evaluation at ¾ Century. Rodney Hopson and Stafford Hood. Learning to Play Scholarly Jazz: A Culturally Responsive Evaluation of the Hopi Teachers for Hopi Schools Project. Carolyne J. White and Mary Hermes. The PENAL Project: Program Evaluation and Native American Liability. Gaetano Senese. It Starts With A Machete:The Politics and Poetics of Space in Urban School Reform. Nona M. Burney, Carolyne J. White and Mary E. Weems. Using Theory-Driven Evaluation with Underserved Communities: Promoting Program Development and Program Sustainability. Katrina L. Bledsoe. Cultural Reflections Stemming From the Evaluation of an Undergraduate Research Program. Dedra Eatmon, Michelle Jay, and Henry T. Frierson. The Use of Contextually Relevant Evaluation Practices with Programs Designed to Increase Participation of Minorities in Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education. Elmima Johnson.