Evaluation Has a Racism Problem – What Can We Do About It?
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This article is a summary and discussion of Caldwell and Bledsoe’s 2019 paper in the American Journal of Evaluation called “Can Social Justice Live in a House of Structural Racism? A Question for the Field of Evaluation.” The original article contains the research and citations to back up these claims.
Racists vs. Racism
Before we can talk about possible strategies to address racism in evaluation, we need to make a very important distinction between individual “racists” and structural “racism.”
A racist individual is someone who holds racist beliefs, such as biases against certain races or negative opinions based on race. For example, the belief that one race of people is less intelligent than another race of people. A racist (or someone with racist beliefs) may act on these beliefs by committing acts of bigotry, hate crimes, or even violence.
Structural racism, on the other hand, occurs at the level of social systems (not individuals). In the words of Ibram X. Kendi, it is like a rain that falls on everyone in a society – no one is immune to or exempt from structural racism. Racism is present in institutions and systems of power, such as unfair laws or the discriminatory practices of schools, workplaces, or government agencies. Racism can also be present within a society’s culture in the form of ideologies or myths that systematically advantage white people and disadvantage people of colour. For example, the overwhelming depiction of people of colour in mainstream media as criminals encourages discrimination and unequal treatment of individuals.
This distinction matters because when we talk about racism, we are usually not talking about racist individuals – we are talking about structural racism in our culture and institutions.
This means that people can participate in systems of racism without holding racist beliefs themselves. For example, research on implicit bias suggests that many of our decisions around racial stereotypes happen in a split second without our awareness. Because we are all living in the “rain” of structural racism, it is likely we have internalized some of these biases and stereotypes, even if we believe ourselves to be nice, fair, unbiased individuals. We are also bound by procedures, policies, and laws that may be racist – so even if we are not racist individuals, our actions are limited by structural racism.
Illustration: Bonnie Kate Wolf
Racism in evaluation
Caldwell and Bledsoe trace the history of evaluation as an academic field, and identify the ways it, too, has been soaked in the “rain” of racism. For example:
Western perspectives and assumptions are ingrained in evaluation methods and theory (e.g., what is defined as credible and valid data).
Evaluation as a field has historically excluded diverse, non-Eurocentric ways of knowing (e.g., cultures that use a logic system that is circular rather than linear).
In evaluation, it is generally accepted that issues can be defined and “solved” by social scientists who do not understand or value the life experiences of people of colour.
Evaluations are based on an academic discipline that was born out of colonialism, slavery, segregation, and apartheid (e.g., research and evaluation was used to support the racist claim that Black people were inherently less intelligent than White people).
This is not to say all of evaluation is racist, because that would ignore the many contributions of evaluators who are black, indigenous, and people of colour (BIPOC).
Some responses to these issues of racism in the field include culturally responsive evaluation, indigenous evaluation, and equitable evaluation (EE). However, these perspectives are generally seen as “optional” and are not necessarily the norm in evaluation. It will take intentional work to undo these systems of racism and make the field anti-racist.
Strategies to eradicate racism
If we accept that “all evaluators, regardless of demographic designation, are subject to perpetuating structural and institutional racism, found in the history and systems of the profession,” the question becomes: what can we do about it?
The authors propose a suite of strategies to unravel racism within evaluation, such as:
Include culturally diverse perspectives in evaluation theory, practice, and education.
Normalize social justice methods and theories in the field of evaluation.
Make changes to professional organizations (like the AEA or CES), for example:
Only nominate professionals for awards and presentations who have applied a social justice framework in their work,
Provide training programs with a social justice perspective,
Reject manuscripts that do not address social justice, equity, or culture; and
Make social justice a criterion for accreditation of evaluators.
Funders of evaluations require a social justice statement or equitable evaluation methods in their requests for proposals.
Expand training programs, conference themes, and workshops focused on racial equity and inequality.
Part of the solution to racism in the evaluation profession is improving the standards and expectations of our professional organizations so they align with social justice and equity. Changing these sorts of systems is difficult and complex, but it can only happen if people demand it. I encourage you to think about the professional organizations you are a part of, and how you can use your power to move these conversations forward.
These may sound like radical changes (because they are!), but they are necessary to eradicate structural racism in our profession and society.
At Eval Academy, we’ve been looking closely at how we diversity, equity and inclusion in our evaluations. Read about our thoughts here.
Source
Caldwell, L. D., & Bledsoe, K. L. (2019). Can Social Justice Live in a House of Structural Racism? A Question for the Field of Evaluation. American Journal of Evaluation, 40(1), 6–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/1098214018815772
A note about the author
This article was written by Nick Yarmey, a white settler living in Treaty 6 territory of what is currently called Canada. I write this with the acknowledgement that I do not have the lived experience of being black, indigenous, or a person of colour (BIPOC). However, I based this article on what I have learned from BIPOC authors and researchers in the interest of taking on some of the labour of explaining these concepts, especially to other white folks. I invite questions, critiques, additions, and comments.