I’m Robert Hoke, independent evaluation consultant, and co-chair for the LGBT Issues TIG.  Today, I want to share some reflections from this AEA365 week.

Although it is becoming easier, it remains challenging to be different regarding sexual identity and gender issues.  The “It Gets Better” campaign grew out of the bullying of youth, and primarily the bullying of GLTQ youth who continue to struggle.  Suicide rates remain over 3 times that of heterosexual youth and individuals who come out as gay, lesbian or transgender continue to lose family and friends.

Hot Tips: Our intention was to take LGBT beyond the checkmarks of “what is your sex” and even past “what is your gender” questions.  We hoped to expand the interests of LGBT evaluation beyond those who identify as LGBTQQI and reveal:

• As Joe Heimlich suggested, the complexity and integrity of the person who identifies as different from the heteronormative gender labels.
• The wonderful link and information Terry Brown included on straight privilege on how pervasively our society remains heteronormed.
• Inclusive evaluation around gender begins with incorporating opportunities to feel included in the evaluation, as shared by Kari Greene and Emily Greytak.
• Efrain Gutierrez’ advice that culturally competent evaluations require understanding how gender identity is woven through all life components of an individual.
• That true cultural competence means moving beyond one’s comfort zone and challenging the system.  David Fetterman shared just a hint of what he and his students discovered when they asked a different question from the norm.

With the increased acceptance of gays and lesbians, and emergence of a growing transgender awareness movement, the evaluation field is at a decision point—does the field as a whole push society and become truly inclusive in our work, or do we wait for society to change and follow?  I believe the cultural competency statement gives a clear indication that honoring all respondents is part of our profession.

The LGBT TIG issues a challenge for all evaluators this year:  consider how you could increase and apply cultural competence inclusive of LGBTQQI populations.  Please share your story at AEA 2013 by allowing the LGBT TIG to sponsor or co-sponsor your presentation.

Rad Resources:  The LGBT TIG leadership is available as sounding board to help increase the sensitivity of your evaluation tools to LGBT cultures or suggest others who are knowledgeable about how LGBT issues may be different in your topic area.

Check out these AEA resources:

• Adding the LGBT Question*
• Eval12 Session 654: Don’t Ask, Can’t Report
• Eval12 Session 112: Evaluating a Moving Target
• Other materials on LGBT issues in the AEA Library

*AEA members-only content

aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. We’re celebrating LGBT Evaluation week with our colleagues in AEA’s LGBT Topical Interest Group. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. 

cultural competency · lgbt

My name is David Fetterman.  I’m President & CEO of Fetterman & Associates, an international evaluation consulting firm (with 25 years experience at Stanford University) and past-president of the American Evaluation Association (AEA).  I am probably best known for empowerment evaluation work (helping people learn how to evaluate their own programs).  For examples see our blog and an article about empowerment evaluation in the School of Medicine at Stanford University in Academic Medicine, and the book Empowerment Evaluation in the Digital Villages:  Hewlett-Packard’s $15 Million Race Toward Social Justice, Stanford University Press

LGBT-Related Survey

One of my recent evaluations, conducted with my  Stanford School of Medicine students, focused on LGBT curricular training in medical schools throughout the U.S. and Canada.  The results – a median reported time of 5 hours of LGBT-related content in the entire curriculum – were published in this article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). It received considerable attention in the press, in part because it is as much a human rights issue as a medical education issue. I’ll share a few tips and tricks that emerged from conducting and publishing this study.

Hot Tip:  We used an online survey program to ask Deans of Schools of Medicine to evaluate their institutions’ level of coverage of 16 LGBT related topics.  Online survey tools, such as SurveyMonkey, save time and money and sort data almost instantaneously.  Surveying Deans automatically enhances the credibility of findings (especially if findings suggest minimal coverage of the material, as in our case).

Reporting survey findings was as much a social responsibility as a scholarly one.  See Anne Dohrenwend’s challenge to speak out about gay rights in Academic Medicine.

Cool Trick: Videoconferencing programs, including Skype, ooVoo, and Google Hangouts are invaluable tools to facilitate communication with team members at remote sites.  Most team members were located across the country, completing residency requirements.  Videoconferencing allowed us to function remotely and inexpensively.

Rad Resource: The Association of American Medical Colleges maintains a curriculum management and Information (CurrMIT) database that helps you determine the coverage of specific topics in medical schools. This database was particularly useful as a form of triangulation when our reporting format – “reported hours of instruction” – was questioned in a draft of our article.

Recommended LGBT cultural competence resources:

Fenway Health

Institute of Medicine of the National Academies

Lesson Learned:  Be prepared for significant opposition to unpopular or controversial findings.  Be prepared to speak with the press.  Highlight key findings and recommendations simply and concisely and be prepared to see how journalists use the information (see example of highlighted findings in New York Times.)  Appreciate your team and enjoy the media blitz for as long as it lasts.

aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. We’re celebrating LGBT Evaluation week with our colleagues in AEA’s LGBT Topical Interest Group. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. 

blog · cultural competency · lgbt · survey · technology

I am Efrain Gutierrez and I work for FSG, a nonprofit consulting firm that helps foundations, nonprofits and corporations increase their social impact. Last year a friend started collaborating as an evaluator for a program that works with LGBTQ youth. Before starting his evaluation he wanted to talk about cultural competency when working with the LGBTQ community. As I prepared for the meeting, I reflected on the lessons that I think would be most useful for evaluators working with this community:                    

Lessons Learned: 1. A person’s sexuality is not the only thing affecting their life. The LGBTQ community replicates the patterns of sexism, racism, and classism prevalent in our society. Problems affecting women and other underrepresented groups are also affecting members of the community. Being queer creates a “multiplier effect,” making it even more challenging for queers to overcome social barriers, stay healthy, get an education, make a decent wage, etc. A clear example of this “multiplier effect” is in the study All Children Matter: How Legal and Social Inequalities Hurt LGBT Families . The document shows how children across races are more likely to live in poverty if they live with a same sex couple compared to those living in different sex couples (see graph from the report below).  As evaluators it is important to account for this “multiplier effect” and be open and prepared to discuss race, sexism, class, and other social issues when engaging with LGBTQ folks.

2. Account for a diversity of voices in your evaluation; tapping only into the most visible LGBTQ members might not give you the diversity needed. Since the LGBTQ movement often reproduces patterns of racial and gender separation prevalent in our society, most intellectual and political circles in the community remain predominantly cis-gender, male, and white. As you determine who to include in your evaluation look for a representative set of members of the LGBTQ community to provide a full picture of the issues affecting the recipients of the programs you are evaluating.

3.  Don’t take for granted that you understand the political context for LGBTQ rights just by reading the headlines. Marriage equality is important, but there is a wide range of challenges affecting the community popular narrative is not focusing on: discrimination against transsexuals, violence against queers living in rural areas, and inadequate access to resources for queers with special needs, to name just a few of the issues evaluators should consider as they work with the LGBTQ community.

Rad Resources:

A Fragile Union  - article on gay politics

Allan Bérubé’s work

aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. We’re celebrating LGBT Evaluation week with our colleagues in AEA’s LGBT Topical Interest Group. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. 

communication · cultural competency · lgbt

This is Kari Greene with Program Design & Evaluation Services in Oregon, and Emily Greytak with GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network in New York. We are with the American Evaluation Association’s (AEA) LGBT Issues Topical Interest Group (TIG) and are heartened to see AEA members building cultural competency around transgender-inclusivity.

Have you ever thought about what you’re really asking with “What is your gender: Male or Female?” Do you want to know how people identify to others? How others see them? What sex they were assigned at birth? This ubiquitous question and standard response options deserve more thought…

Hot Tips:

Should I ask transgender identity? Sex at birth? Current gender?

Start with asking what you really need to know and why. For example, a health program offering cancer screenings may need to know if male-identified clients have anatomy/physiology typically associated with females, so they may need breast or cervical cancer screenings. Meanwhile, a housing program might only need to assess if the outcomes are different between transgender and non-trans clients.

I can’t ask people if they’re transgender – they’ll be offended!

Including trans-inclusive items appears to be innocuous for adults and youth. Oregon tested two transgender items in the statewide health survey and respondents 18 to 80 answered easily. In fact, income and weight questions have far higher refusal rates.

I put “Transgender” on my client form but a transgender client checked the “Female” box – what did I do wrong?

Nothing! Some transgender people may identify as both female or male and transgender, so you may want a “check all that apply” gender item. Others may only identify as male or female, so you could also add a question asking sex assigned at birth. Some people don’t identify as male, female or transgender so an open option is helpful.

There are so few transgender people – why bother since I can’t use them in subgroup analysis of male/female participants?

Remember the program is already serving transgender people – they just aren’t counted. Create an analytic plan that describes all participants, and combines groups reliably and respectfully. Excluding transgender respondents sends the message that the evaluation or program is not relevant or welcoming to transgender people.

Any sample questions you suggest?

Yes, but it depends on what you need to know. There is no single “best item” for assessing transgender respondents but these resources can help!

Rad Resources:

Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey

Assessing Transgender Status in Surveys of Adolescents: A GLSEN Research Brief Services & Advocacy for GLBT Elders

Eval12 Session 654: Don’t Ask, Can’t Report  materials in the AEA public eLibrary

aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. We’re celebrating LGBT Evaluation week with our colleagues in AEA’s LGBT Topical Interest Group. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. 

cultural competency · lgbt · survey

My name is Terry L. Brown, and I am a doctoral candidate in the College of Education at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. Transgressing gender is the practice of blurring socio-constructed gender boundaries as a strategic response to heteronormative practice. Heteronormative, also referred to as gender normative, practice seeks efficiencies through standardizing and regulating sameness while simultaneously diminishing difference.  Disruptions to heteronormative cultural ways offer opportunities to re-think traditional policy and programmatic response structures and frameworks. Individuals across the gender spectrum often drive change laterally, across social, political, technological, legal and economic systems, in such a way that leads to the expansion of opportunities for those traditionally excluded.

Rad Resources – The Basics: Gender 101  (Some starting points)

• The difference between sex and gender
• The Gender Acronym Defined: LGBTTIQQ2SAAP
• Transgender Glossary of Term’s from Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)
• Cisgender

Hot Tip 1:  Binary categories have long exceeded their usefulness in collecting data on sexual orientation and gender. To this end,

a)  Likert-type scales are useful for capturing nuanced data when gender positionalities are often situational and can even change dynamically from questions to question.

b)  Allow for multiple items to be selected.

c)  Employ case study to capture transformational outcomes for those who identify as LGBT.

Hot Tip 2:  Gender assumptions can be found embedded among the nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verbs we use in writing, resulting in participants hitting exit before survey completion.

a)  Make sure to go outside traditional feedback loops, to review any evaluation materials before implementation.

b)  Challenge traditional academic models of “best practice” for processes that reinforce gender preferences.

c)  Use inclusive language: “we” as opposed to he/she when preparing reports.

d)  Examine metaphors and other linguistic devices for reproducing gender- normative patterns.

Hot Tip 3:  Gender assumptions are implicit understandings which often take the form of stereotypes around masculinity and femininity. Be generous in your use of comment boxes, even in demographics items, as a method for allowing:

a)  Respondents to provide feedback on word choice, or to point out embedded assumptions;

b)  To reduce conceptual blind spots and emerge unknown positionalities;

c)  To break the urge of evaluators to neatly label and categorize; and

d)  To bring out rich data and capture human diversity.

Lessons Learned – Some common heteronormative assumptions:

• Lesbians dislike men
• All trans-folk consider themselves part of the LGBT community
• Marriage = 1 man and 1 woman
• A stay at home caregiver  = a woman
• LGBT are non-spiritual and/or non-religious
• All women, lesbian or otherwise, want to have children
• Men are born leaders
• People who identify as LGBT are making a choice
• Men who identify as gay are effeminate

Rad Resources:  Explore: Heterosexuality Questionnaire;  Straight Privilege

aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. We’re celebrating LGBT Evaluation week with our colleagues in AEA’s LGBT Topical Interest Group. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. 

cultural competency · lgbt · survey

Welcome to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Evaluation Topical Interest Group (LGBT TIG) week on aea365! My name is Joe E. Heimlich. I’m a professor with Ohio State University Extension where I work with informal learning institutions and organizations to build capacity. This week, I’m in my role as coordinator for the LBGT TIG’s blog week.

During the American Evaluation Association annual conference, through discussions in sessions and at the TIG meeting, the question kept arising: What does it mean to be culturally competent as the concept relates to gay, lesbian and transgender issues? We realize that for many, the assumption is that competence means asking if someone is LGBT and, if they’re really cutting edge, including QQI (queer, questioning, and intersex). But for those who are represented by any of these letters of gender identity and beyond, the hetero-normative assumptions in what is asked and how it is asked go far beyond the label used.

This week, the LBGT TIG is pleased to host a week of blogs meant to challenge some of the underlying assumptions of cultural competence and those who identify as gender other.

What does this mean? Think how challenging it is to answer a question about head of household when the underlying assumption is heteronormative households. Consider the frustration when trying to fill in the box about “family composition” when the boxes don’t work (Yes I have a daughter. No I’m not her father biologically or legally.). The list goes on of ways in which the questions asked are suggesting the respondent does not fit.

This week, we’ll take a few steps toward cultural competency around LGBTQQI. First, Terry Brown will challenge us about the construct of gender and identity. Kari Geene and Emily Greytak are next with their important work around the difficulty of asking about transgender identity. Efrain posts his blog which provides some thought-provoking insights into how gender identity informs all aspects of an individual’s life. David Fetterman then gives us insight into the amazing work he and his team have been doing in applying LGBT awareness into medical education. Finally, Robert Hoke wraps up the week with a charge to the field.

Our goal this week is to begin moving gender in evaluation from being about putting people in boxes, to an understanding that gender identity IS identity. To understand the individual, we must include a central part of who they are in our work.

Hot Tip: There is no one “gay” or “lesbian” or LGBT culture. There is tremendous diversity within gender groupings, and understanding that a study of LGBTQQI requires more than sex and sexual orientation. Queer theory provides an entry for understanding the complexity that is queer theory and a good place for an introduction is Sex, Gender and Development: Challenging Heteronormativity (free for download).

Rad Resource – Gender Spectrum: A great introductory site on gender.

Clipped from: www.genderspectrum.org (share this clip)

aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. We’re celebrating LGBT Evaluation week with our colleagues in AEA’s LGBT Topical Interest Group. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice.

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My name is Cindy Crusto, and I am an associate professor at Yale University School of Medicine and chair of the AEA Public Statement on Cultural Competence in Evaluation Dissemination Working Group. Today, I summarize and reflect on the Hindsight is 20/20: Reflecting on Missed Opportunities, Missteps, and Successes in Attending to Culture and Context in Evaluation Practice Think Tank, an Evaluation 2012 session organized by our working group.

Arthur Hernandez, Kari Greene, and Hazel Symonette illustrated missed opportunities and successes in addressing and attending to culture/context in evaluations. This entry focuses on Kari Greene’s fictitious case study with a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) health coalition conducting a needs assessment. The coalition quickly realized there was not one “LGBTQ community” but instead many different communities. The coalition needed to identify who they wanted to serve –identity-based communities only or include individuals not identifying as LGBTQ but might have LGBTQ health needs (e.g. a man born a woman but transitioned years ago and does not identify as transgender, however, has trans-related health needs)? Would the group address LGBTQ issues statewide, including rural issues and the “gay ghetto” of urban centers? Would they gather information across the lifespan? Finally, given the diversity of individual member’s gender identity, meetings began with individuals indicating their preferred gender pronouns.

Lessons Learned: The case study highlighted several lessons:

• We have to identify within group diversity
  • cultural similarity of the evaluator and the evaluands does not guarantee awareness of within group diversity;
  • diversity in self-definition/self-identification exists; evaluators may need to bridge generational, regional, and/or other gaps to develop within group understanding, tolerance, acceptance, and/or consensus;
  • We should move away from a cultural competence “checklist mentality” and toward cultural humility, an ongoing process of self-reflection and self-critique
    • cultural competence checklists do not exist; each evaluation is different and requires attention to different cultural/contextual issues;
    • yesterday’s culturally competent evaluator is tomorrow’s incompetent evaluator; we must remain organic, dynamic, and ever-morphing, open, responsive, and hold to a reflective beginner stance;
    • We have to attend to issues of power and bias.

The Think Tank’s discussant, Donna Mertens, posed questions that can be used in your work:

1. What dimensions of diversity are relevant in the communities in which you work?
2. How do you identify relevant dimensions of diversity in your evaluations?
3. What power issues might arise between subgroups within the evaluation context? How would you address them?

Rad Resources

• Joe Heimlick’s Coffee Break Webinar on “Adding the LGBT Response Option to Questionnaires” (AEA members only)
• Greytak, Guterrez, and Greene’s Don’t Ask, Can’t Report – A Practical Guide to Collecting Data on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender People in a Culturally Responsive Way

This week, we’re diving into issues of Cultural Competence in Evaluation with AEA’s Statement on Cultural Competence in Evaluation Dissemination Working Group. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

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I am Humberto Reynoso-Vallejo a Director for Program Evaluation with the Center for Health Policy and Research at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Conducting evaluation entails the incorporation of multicultural features of individuals and/or organizations into the process of data collection and analysis. These multicultural features are socially constructed and are translated into layers of identity reflected as multicultural identity. Multicultural identity has a powerful impact on individuals since it confers particular social meanings to each layer (e.g. we may have to work with a lesbian African-American woman, or a recent male immigrant from Guatemala with a particular medical condition, or an organization with employees from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds). Life chances and opportunities are determined by these layers of identity that place some individuals in privileged positions based on certain dominant principles in society (e.g. White, male, heterosexual, able-bodied.).

Multicultural processes include the incorporation of multiple layers of identity in the evaluation. These layers work in complex ways and we may significantly enrich our work when including them in the analysis. Organizations or stakeholders can be seen as entities with a multicultural identity, some more aware than others.

Hot tips:

• Take appropriate notes of multicultural processes during the evaluation process which may be eventually included on your reports or articles as important material.

• Be aware of your own multicultural identity and how this interacts with stakeholders. Be open and reject myths such as color blindness. Try to build coalitions with diverse groups.

• Conduct an assessment of the multiculturality of the organization/stakeholders in terms of their social, cultural, and political representation; value, celebrate and capitalize on differences; and level of engagement in eliminating forms of oppression such as racism, sexism, and ageism. Quantity and quality of services may be related to an organization’s ability to provide a socially just working environment for all its employees.

• Be emphatic and place yourself in the other person’s shoes paying attention to your reactions during that process.

• Be aware of your reactions to difference and, when pertinent, included this in your deliverables.

• Using “I” statements rather than “we” or “you”, allows you to be more fully present in the interchange and avoids the mistake of trying to represent people whose multicultural background is similar to yours, or make erroneous assumptions about people you are interacting with that may share similar identities.

•  Avoid jumping to conclusions about people you are interacting with based on socially learned preconceived notions about certain population groups.

• Pay special attention to content (what we say) and process (how we say it).

• Be aware of Intent (what you are trying to convey) and impact (the person’s reaction of what you are saying).

Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

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I’m Dominica McBride, President of The HELP Institute, Inc. Recently, I wrote an article for New Directions for Evaluation on Sociocultural Theory (ST) and its applicability to evaluation.

Joke: There were a few young fish swimming near an older, wise fish and the old, wise fish says, “My, isn’t the water wonderful today?” and the young fish say, “Water? What water?”

Relevance: Culture is like water to fish – influencing our lives but often taken for granted or never even seen. It can be this ethereal and abstract concept. However, reflecting on and examining culture can be pivotal in personal and professional growth, program improvement, and societal change.

ST is one of the most comprehensive models on culture and human development, touching on all aspects of culture – the biological, psychological, interpersonal, linguistic, ecological, and historical. It provides simple guiding principles for evaluation and research practice:

Hot Tip: The unit of analysis is the sociocultural activity. Examine naturally occurring activities as it relates to the program or process (e.g., participants interacting). These activities should be considered in the context of the program, sociopolitical environment, family norms, organizational culture, etc.

Hot Tip: To understand a person, group, or social phenomena, we must ascertain the ever-changing environment and acknowledge and examine the development of the person, group, or program over time.

Hot Tip: Individual dynamics are affected by intrapersonal, interpersonal, and community dynamics – all of which are inseparable. So, to study a person or program, we must also consider the multifaceted influences that affect the participant behavior and the program.

Hot Tip: Groups have more variety within than between, which means there is more “cultural group” within a group and we must take this into consideration when learning of “another culture.” This fact can also help to dispel stereotypes. There are also many commonalities between groups. These phenomena help us to see and appreciate both the differences and links between us and others.

Hot Tip: Often times, we can get attached to methods. ST reminds us that the question should drive the methods and not the other way around. This assumption also encompasses the need for interdisciplinary work, opening our minds and hearts to other professionals and ways of doing things.

Hot Tip: In order to truly understand another, we must understand ourselves. Thus, we should take time to reflect on our development, cultural influences, personal and professional context, and intrapersonal dynamics. Without cleaning our own lens, we will always see others through tainted glasses.

Rad Resource:

Sociocultural Theory expert Barara Rogoff’s comprehensive book, The Cultural Nature of Human Development.

Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

culture · Evaluation

Greetings. I’m Robert Hoke, an independent consultant and co-chair of AEA’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Issues TIG. We hope you have found this week’s AEA365 blogs to be thought-provoking and informative. As we all strive to embody the principles found in the AEA Statement on Cultural Competence in Evaluation, it is important to learn about how our work may be perceived by members of other cultures.

While it is common to include analysis of sexual or identity in evaluation of HIV programs or anti-bullying programs, there are many other incidences where LGBT individuals may experience a problem differently such as domestic violence, addictions, homelessness, and aging. As evaluators, we may need to encourage our clients to examine how their programs affect the LGBT community even if the process makes them feel uncomfortable.

The LGBT Issues TIG provides visibility of and support for LGBT issues within AEA. The TIG serves LGBT-identified evaluation colleagues, LGBT allies, and evaluators interested in working with LGBT populations. It provides a safe forum to explore LGBT issues within AEA and in the profession. In recent years the TIG has sponsored sessions at the AEA Annual Conference that detail how to successfully incorporate LGBT concerns into evaluations. I encourage you to attend one of our sessions even if are not currently involved in a “LGBT Evaluation” or submit a paper in a TIG sponsored session.

Rad Resource: The leadership of the LGBT TIG is available as sounding board to how to increase the sensitivity of your evaluation tools to LGBT cultures or to suggest other evaluators or researchers who are knowledgeable about how LGBT issues may be different in your topic area. The TIG Leadership can be found at: http://www.eval.org/aboutus/organization/tigs.asp

Rad Resource: Joe E. Heimlich, a professor at Ohio State and senior research associate with the Institute for Learning Innovation presented an AEA Coffeebreak Webinar in February 2011 entitled “Adding the LGBT Response Option to Questionnaires.” The webinar is available in the webinars archive for AEA members.

Lessons Learned: In addition to gender and sexual identity, survey questions about marital status also need to be sensitive to LGBTs. Domestic partnerships and same-sex marriages are becoming increasingly common. As a person in a 23-year relationship in a state that allows for neither option, I may be “never married” but I am certainly not “single.”

Hot Tip: Even though LGBT individuals do not engage in sex in any rate higher or lower than do heterosexuals, most people continue to conflate sex activity with sexual identity and gender identity. Heteronormativism is dominant in our culture and does make those of sexual identity and gender identity minorities very aware of when and how they are included in a conversation.

We’re celebrating LGBT Evaluation week with our colleagues in AEA’s LGBT Topical Interest Group. Follow @aeaweb on twitter this week, or subscribe to the week’s Headlines and Resources list for more LGBT Evaluation items of note. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

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