Awards

AEA Type II Travel Awards

The MIE TIG selects up to six $500 travel awards available to full-time students submitting conference proposals for papers identifying ways to increase the racial/ethnic diversity of people entering the field of evaluation and/or ways to increase the cultural competencies of evaluators more generally. All students are eligible to compete for these scholarships; however, special consideration is given to students who themselves will increase the racial/ethnic diversity of presenters at the conference. Each of the recipients proposals were accepted for conference presentation. 

There are four 2009 recipients of the Type II travel awards.  More about the papers can be found below. 

Srividhya Shanker- University of Minnesota

'True Knowledge Confers Humility': People of Color and Indigenous People in Evaluation

It is overwhelmingly programs focused on 'fixing' communities of color and indigenous communities, rather than on 'fixing' the systems that created and reinforce inequities, that are the subject of evaluation efforts. This paper proposes critical inquiry around two research questions: 1) How do evaluation professionals portray communities of color and indigenous communities in their conference presentations and materials? 2) How do people of color and indigenous people experience the evaluation trainings and professional development opportunities in which they participate? Answering these questions by reflecting on our discourse (e.g., the 2004 cultural reading of AEA's Program Evaluation Standards) and by seeking people's observations and impressions (e.g., N. L. Smith's 2002 AJE article entitled 'International Students' Reflections on the Cultural Embeddedness of Evaluation Theory,' p. 481-92) would help members of the evaluation community develop, implement, and evaluate interventions appropriate for increasing the racial/ ethnic diversity of evaluation practitioners as well as the cultural competence of evaluators more generally.

Yun-shiuan Chen- University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

Myths of Assessing Cultural Context in Evaluation

A case study of an after-school tutoring program for 'socioeconomically disadvantaged' and 'bicultural' students in a remote area of Taiwan, addresses two issues for evaluators to consider: cultural context and how we describe culture. The Taiwanese culture, wherein the program is situated, is a complex quilt interwoven with the threads and patches of stakeholders, program, time, space, and historical heritage. To understand this unique cultural context is both a challenge for a standard, well-intended after-school tutoring program to adapt to, and for evaluators who struggle to understand it, without possessing the shared, lived experiences of the participants. Further, this research questions the way institutions "name" their service recipients. Institutional language not only neglects to serve, but also often lacks a language to capture the nuanced and hybrid cultural identities of its students. Might evaluators who simplify cultural context also be unconsciously enhancing the misplaced naming power of the institution?

Jade Caines- Emory University

Culture Within Context: Innovative Strategies That Will Increase Ethnic Diversity Within the Evaluation Field

Based on recent data from the American Evaluation Association's internal scan, evaluators from racial/ethnic minority groups have limited representation within AEA membership. This leads to the assumption that evaluators at large are not racially/ethnically diverse. AEA must address these disparities. Evaluation studies must utilize the knowledge, skills, and abilities of ethnically diverse teams. Context, however, matters and calls for a multi-tiered approach aimed at increasing ethnic diversity within the field. Therefore, I propose a three-strand educational approach: First, AEA should create mentorship/shadow programs targeting secondary students. Second, an aggressive marketing campaign can help expose undergraduate/graduate students to the field. Third, workshops aimed at career-changers can highlight the opportunities available in, as well as the benefits of, the evaluation field. With increased federal mandates and a piercing focus on evaluation, there is no time to waste. AEA must step up to the challenges facing this field. The time is now.

Krystall Dunaway - Old Dominion University

The Development and Validation of the Cultural Competence of Program Evaluators (CCPE) Scale

Although most program evaluators embrace the idea that evaluation should be shrouded in cultural competence, there is currently no measure of cultural competence in existence for the field. Therefore, the goal of this study was to develop and validate a measure of cultural competence for use with program evaluators. Items from three established measures in the fields of counseling, therapy, and healthcare were selected and altered to better suit the field of program evaluation, and then these altered items were combined, along with qualitative and demographic questions, to create the Cultural Competence for Program Evaluators (CCPE) instrument. The researchers pilot tested the CCPE via purposive heterogeneity sampling. Specifically, online surveying of members of AEA and SEA was used. The reliability and validity of the CCPE was assessed, as well as differences in level of cultural competence among program evaluators based on several demographic variables. Results and implications will be discussed.