Latinx Responsive Evaluation Discourse
Arthur Hernandez, PhD (he/him/his)
Professor
University of the Incarnate Word
San Antonio, Texas, United States
Arthur Hernandez, PhD (he/him/his)
Professor
University of the Incarnate Word
San Antonio, Texas, United States
Location: Room 208
Abstract Information: Stories are based and grounded in identity including cultural identity and serve to contain and convey knowledge from the perspective of those who have “lived to tell about it”. This approach to exploring, demonstrating, or discovering value cannot be under appreciated since it has significant potential for the accuracy and authenticity of knowledge which is well beyond what is possible by most approaches to “data” collection. How does labeling and categorization, even self-labeling affect our definition, determination, processes, analysis, and interpretation of information? How does it corrupt or destroy the integrity of the personal and community story which evaluation seeks to harvest and use to describe community perspectives related to value – the essence of evaluation purpose? This session will bring interested participants to discuss the role and meaningfulness of labels and categories, necessary cautions related to their use and how this typical method of pursuing, summarizing, and reporting data has potential to “steal” ownership of stories from the individuals and communities who live them. This theft of story is contrary to the intentions of culturally responsive and equitable evaluation but more broadly, perhaps raises questions regarding ethics, authenticity, and meaningfulness of the products of evaluation achieved without due regard for story?
Relevance Statement: Stories represent the oldest and most usual means of conveying the wisdom of communities. Those that persist serve as “culture bearers” and serve to describe and identify those for whom those stories are meaningful. Stories serve as a preeminent teaching and learning mechanism engaging individuals in the cognitive, affective, and behavioral components of knowledge, conveying the consequences of history and heritage including values and overall worldview. Thus, the use and “pursuit” of story is a powerful framework and action for determining value (which is the putative purpose of evaluation) that is genuine and respectful, based on the interest, philosophy and value systems of all involved, and capable of including all elements of the dynamic of concern, Of course, this presumes all human action is conditional, affected context, identity, and volition. Stories provide authentically considered (lived) human activity as something engaged in rather than mechanical while theoretical (e.g., behavioral) evaluation focus on the accuracy/generalizability of the model. Simply put, stories contain and convey knowledge in context of those who have constructed or discovered it which has potential for accuracy and authenticity well beyond what is possible by most other approaches. Many (traditional) evaluation methods involve the identification of and measurement associated with “indicators” which usually involves labelling and categorization and are fundamental processes by which evaluation is usually conducted. Thus at a minimum, a consideration of how labeling and categorization, even self-labeling affects the definition, determination, processes, analysis, and interpretation of information is essential to any consideration of the use of story for evaluation. This consideration must also therefore, include the potential of these approaches to result in “artificial” results which while applicable to the population which were their source fail to represent that population. This last suggests the importance of thinking about story not only as one of a large number of evaluation “tools” but as essential to any evaluation effort.