PSYCH 354Q - Culturally Responsive Evaluation

Culturally Responsive Evaluation is a way of thinking, a stance taken, and an approach to evaluation that centers culture and context in all steps of an evaluation from planning to utilization of findings. Married with tools for analyzing and attending to social and organizational systems, this course provides a timely and necessary foundation for critically informing sound evaluation practice while uplifting the role of evaluation in supporting social impact, social change, and advocacy. In this course, Systems Approaches to Culturally Responsive Evaluation (SysCRE), we will review foundations of Systems and CRE theory and practice; discuss appropriate methodological practices for designing engagements and collecting data; and learn about analysis and interpretation of mixed methods data under equity-focused evaluation frameworks. Taking the broad approach that “culture” describes a shared set of values, principles, practices, behaviors, and tools among groups of individuals, we’ll determine the ways in which programs and evaluations are culturally- and contextually-situated and explore what this assertion means for evaluation design, methods, and analysis. We will draw from interdisciplinary readings across health, education, evaluation, and other fields to confront complex topics such as how the intersectionality of evaluators and stakeholders can impact the success of a program or evaluation; challenge traditional social science assertions of objectivity and bias; and revisit ideas about data validity from an equity lens. The course is divided into three components: (1) Foundations in SysCRE theory and principles - where we will engage with texts from thought leaders such as Bob Williams, Bill Trochim, Karen Kirkhart, Rodney Hopson and others to establish a basis for thinking about culturally-situated social systems. (2) Mixed-methods approaches and data collection tactics – where we will compare traditional social science research and evaluation paradigms with the rising tide of responsive data collection methods; and (3) Analysis, interpretation, and utilization of data in equity-focused frameworks – where we will challenge long-held perspectives that data outliers are “noise” and that disaggregation of data by demographic factors is sufficient for an equity analysis while learning about alternative strategies for working with qualitative and quantitative data.
Units: 2
Course Type: Seminar