{"id":3223,"date":"2011-04-14T03:06:12","date_gmt":"2011-04-14T08:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aea365.org\/blog\/?p=3223"},"modified":"2011-04-04T13:15:49","modified_gmt":"2011-04-04T18:15:49","slug":"scribing-vidhya-shanker-on-discussions-regarding-the-aea-cultural-competence-statement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aea365.org\/blog\/scribing-vidhya-shanker-on-discussions-regarding-the-aea-cultural-competence-statement\/","title":{"rendered":"Scribing: Vidhya Shanker on Discussions Regarding the AEA Cultural Competence Statement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is Vidhya Shanker, a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota. I served as an Evaluation 2010 scribe for Think Tank Session 242, <em>Cultural Competency in Evaluation: Discussion of the American Evaluation Association\u2019s Public Statement on the Importance of Cultural Competence in Evaluation<\/em>. Discussion was organized into small groups, each of which focused on the statement in relation to policy, practice, teaching, or theory.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lessons Learned:<\/strong> The following are from the teaching group:<\/p>\n<p>Opportunities<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>As      a mandate, the statement provides educators legitimacy in moving      considerations of cultural competency from the margins to the center.<\/li>\n<li>It helps learners understand      that cultural competence is not a destination or state of being. They      often want to know what the steps are to get \u201cthere\u201d. Once you attempt to      provide a list, they say, \u201cWell, I already\u2026 [engage stakeholders, etc.],      anyway.\u201d Cultural competence is a reflective stance that involves learning,      unlearning, and relearning. Unlike many artificially one-dimensional and      linear models, it is recursive and multidirectional.<\/li>\n<li>It      allows us to differentiate further between research and evaluation\u00beboth      of which are embedded in and reflect the values and culture of academia. Evaluation,      however, has the added imperatives of involving stakeholders and being      used by identified decision-makers, neither of which are required of      research.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Challenges<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201dCulture\u201d      is difficult to pinpoint\u2014we tend to think of it only in terms of ethno-racial      markers. Thanks to civil rights gains, issues of culture are not always as      obvious to today\u2019s students. Students in some contexts, e.g., HBCUs, may      be familiar with the notion of culture in relation to race\/ ethnicity and      understand it in terms of a shared set of values\/ ways of living, but be      less familiar with deaf cultures or youth cultures. Within ethno-racial      groups are intra-cultural differences, stereotypes, and specific language\u2014for      example, about \u201cgangs\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>Understanding culture      requires a global as well as a local frame. Hawai\u2019ian students, for example,      may figure that mainland evaluators will not understand them anyway, fear      they will judge them, or wonder what they will do with the information they      get from them.<\/li>\n<li>Encouraging students      to discuss their own biases\u00beeven to recognize that      they have them\u00beis      difficult.<\/li>\n<li>Culture      is lived, not learned, and cultural competence is distinct from cultural      fluency. There is no clear and easy rubric or recipe for achieving      cultural competence, which is why AEA is still dealing with this. It is a      moving target. If we have not resolved it ourselves, how do we teach it?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Next steps<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Evaluation      educators and students must go outside the classroom, because the      classroom reflects a certain culture in itself.<\/li>\n<li>To      prepare, however, we need appropriate case studies and curricula.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Note: The Cultural Competence in Evaluation Statement is currently up for member vote as an official statement on behalf of AEA. If you are an AEA member, please be sure to cast your vote on or before Thursday, April 21, at <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/r20.rs6.net\/tn.jsp?llr=qkw6hdbab&amp;t=w64otdfab.0.0.qkw6hdbab.0&amp;id=preview&amp;ts=S0608&amp;p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.eval.org%2Fballot%2Fccstatementvote.asp\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.eval.org\/ballot\/ccstatementvote.asp<\/a> (you will be asked to login).<\/p>\n<p><em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>At AEA\u2019s<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.eval.org\/eval2010\/default.asp\"><em> <\/em><em>2010 Annual Conference<\/em><\/a><em>, session scribes took notes at over 30 sessions and we\u2019ll be sharing their work throughout the winter on aea365. <\/em><em> 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<\/em><a href=\"..\/..\/\"><em> aea365 webpage<\/em><\/a><em> so that we may enrich our community of practice.<\/em><em> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is Vidhya Shanker, a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota. I served as an Evaluation 2010 scribe for Think Tank Session 242, Cultural Competency in Evaluation: Discussion of the American Evaluation Association\u2019s Public Statement on the Importance of Cultural Competence in Evaluation. Discussion was organized into small groups, each of which focused on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[229,219,222,225,238],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-educational-evaluation","category-indigenous-peoples-in-evaluation","category-international-and-cross-cultural-evaluation","category-multiethnic-issues-in-evaluation","category-teaching-of-evaluation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aea365.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aea365.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aea365.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aea365.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aea365.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3223"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/aea365.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3229,"href":"https:\/\/aea365.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3223\/revisions\/3229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aea365.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aea365.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aea365.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}