My name is Yiwei Zhang. I am an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha (UNO), Grace Abbott School of Social Work, and the coordinator of the Support and Training for the Evaluation of Programs at UNO.
Lessons Learned
Over the past year, my participation in the AEA Minority Serving Institute (MSI) Fellowship has allowed me to explore strategies for embedding Culturally Responsive and Equitable Evaluation (CREE) into social work education. Throughout this journey, I discovered a deep connection between social work and CREE, grounded in their shared values and principles. For example, core principles of CREE—such as culturally responsive practice, equity, and social justice—are also integral to social work’s Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards and Code of Ethics. As I explore integrating CREE into social work education, it is clear that CREE provides a powerful framework to enhance our approach to teaching program evaluation. To effectively embed CREE in the social work classroom, I suggest the following strategies:
Facilitate discussions on culture and evaluation. Students may have previously reflected on their identity, power, and privilege in other classes. Building on this, I found it meaningful for students to explore how their identities shape their understanding of scientific inquiry, preferred methodologies, and their assumptions and biases about the community. They can also examine how different stakeholders in the community either reinforce or challenge the existing power structure. Both traditional reflective journals and creative activities, such as creating cultural mosaics or diagrams, are effective options to facilitate discussion.
Diversify the methods we teach. Alongside traditional methods like quantitative and experimental designs, we should introduce students to innovative approaches, such as action research and community-based participatory research, which have not been sufficiently represented in our curriculum. This shift involves encouraging students to critique and challenge biases in conventional evaluation practices from an anti-racist and anti-oppressive perspective and guiding them to rethink the evaluator’s role—moving from experts to facilitators of community knowledge and experiences. By making this shift, students will gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of the community’s lived experiences and ensure that their own practice amplifies the community’s voices.
Integrate social work skills. While not every social worker will directly conduct evaluations at the program or organizational level, connecting CREE to their professional skills can enhance their appreciation and engagement of this framework in future practice. For instance, CREE’s focus on trust and relationship-building aligns with the core social work principles. By applying the relationship-building skills acquired in clinical or community organization courses to establish trust with the focus community, students can better understand social work’s role in evaluation and develop a greater interest in CREE.
Utilize service learning to demonstrate implications. Service learning, a teaching padegogy that integrates community service with academic coursework, allows students in CREE-focused evaluation courses to gain hands-on experience and practical examples by working directly with communities. Given that most of these courses span only one semester, I recommend a smaller-scale service-learning project concentrating on one or two aspects of the evaluation practice. For instance, students might develop a CREE-guided evaluation plan to address a single evaluation question, produce a data analysis report incorporating community members’ input on data interpretation, or moderate a town hall meeting to identify the community’s evaluation needs. While students may not complete a full-scale CREE-guided evaluation, engaging in even a portion of the process will reveal the power of CREE and its potential impact on their future careers.
Ultimately, sustaining CREE in social work curricula is vital to advancing our profession’s commitment to social justice, equity, anti-oppression, and culturally responsive practice.
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Very insightful Dr. Zhang. Thank you for your expertise!