Hi, we are Tamarah Moss, Kimberly Harris, Rachel Powell, Jochebed Gayles, and Jennifer Garcia, and we welcome you to this week’s blog series. Originally coming together in the Leaders in Equitable Evaluation and Diversity (LEEAD) Program, we hail from varying backgrounds in applied economics, business, education, human development, public health, and social work. Our evaluation work ranges across settings that include consulting agencies, foundations, community-based organizations, higher education, government, and academic research. Our relationship began as a cohort of professionals committed to equity and social justice, through which we developed deeper collegial connections and ultimately friendships.
Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging have become loaded terms, but remain important principles to cultivate across various settings and environments. When evaluating people, contexts, procedures, practices, or policies, it is critical to consider the influence of the evaluation on all that can be affected by its process and result. While evaluative efforts may start or end with good intentions, they can, and do, risk causing greater harm than good. We believe that now, more than ever, incorporating methodological approaches of liberation, equity, social justice, and Indigenous ways of knowing is important for implementing and evaluating any efforts that have direct implications for all humans and the world we live in.
In collective voice, we curated a blog series that offers readers an opportunity to think more expansively about culturally responsive and equitable evaluation (CREE), culturally responsive Indigenous evaluation (CRIE), and diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB).
This week’s authors form a “village” of CREE- and CRIE-minded evaluators who are actively unveiling what it means to intentionally include these and DEIB principles in evaluative approaches and practices. The contributing authors in this series share their particular stance on the role of evaluation and DEIB. This includes reenvisioning and reimagining the DEIB space, elevating Indigenous knowledge to unpack DEIB and evaluation spaces, and applying CREE principles to cultivate DEIB processes. You will experience themes of the importance of Indigenous and local ways of knowing, decentering “whiteness” and traditional comparison groups, emphasizing and ensuring equity and inclusion and evaluation practice, using systems and asset-based approaches, the critical integration of social justice and equality defined by the community, and the power of youth voice.
Our hope is that this Blog Series offers some excitement about evaluation and some wisdom that incites new and transformative ways to consider the intersection of CREE and CRIE within DEIB spaces. Thinking about how we can improve, interrogate, and reimagine this work is critical. While not necessarily new information for many evaluators, the stories shared shine a light on the application of CREE and CRIE approaches and more!
Hot Tips & Rad Resources
- Become more knowledgeable about CREE | Get a copy and read the book: Culturally Responsive and Equitable Evaluation: Visions and Voices of Emerging Scholars. This publication brings together emerging leaders in CREE and real-world approaches and applications to CREE.
- Check out this CRE/CRIE/CREE bibliography
- Participate in the ETB CREE Learning Series – Expanding The Bench for evaluators and funders of evaluation.
- Create your own Community of Practice on CREE to enhance local and broader ways of knowing and understanding in evaluation practice. Check out resources at BetterEvaluation.
- Use as a reference the Considerations for Conducting Evaluation Using a Culturally Responsive and Racial Equity Lens by the Center for Culturally Responsive Engagement at MPHI.
- Visit the Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment site at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.
- Check out the blog post Evaluation with a DEI Lens
- Check out the EvalMatrix by Strategy Learning Partners for Innovation
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. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.