Conference

What a Global Diversity Internship Was Like: Immersion in Culturally Responsive Evaluation

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Abstract

This roundtable discussion will feature a ten-minute introduction to my experience as a Graduate Evaluation Diversity Intern (GEDI) with the American Evaluation Association (AEA), working in a year-long placement with a private sector company contracted to evaluate US federal government programming. My ISU advisor and I will engage in discussion concerning the role of culturally responsive evaluation in the field of Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning, and Adaptation in relation to my experience as a GEDI intern and speak more generally to the opportunities and challenges of minority-based internship programs in the international context. Culturally responsive evaluation is an emerging, context-specific framework that seeks to redress the harms done by Western approaches to evaluation. Where Western approaches do not consider the cultural aspects and contextual particularities of those they are evaluating, this newer framework allows for such consideration. During this roundtable, we will discuss the potential and limitations of this evaluation framework as it relates to diversity. While culturally responsive evaluation aspires to account for and respond to structural racism and cultural differences among evaluators and evaluation participants, how is it limited by its own assumptions about competence, community, and the promise of praxis?