This chapter summarizes and presents several current insights into our current understanding of structural racism. It then argues that evaluators have a role and a responsibility to step further into the arena by explicitly addressing structural racism in our evaluation projects. Lastly, drawing on our work at BECOME: Center for Community Engagement and Social Change, it outlines three strategies evaluators can adopt too, as we suggest, “step further into the arena.”
In this study, we used Q methodology to investigate perspectives on mentorship among alumni of the Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI) program. We asked participants to think retrospectively and give their opinion on the most important characteristics a GEDI
ProgramThe American Evaluation Association Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI) program is currently in its 10th cycle and has 62 alumni and alumnae. Mentorship is a core feature of the GEDI program, which is advanced and utilized as a distinctively interpersonal form of learning. During the GEDI program, formal and informal mentorship of the interns is combined with professional development workshops, participation in conferences, and hands-on evaluation experience through practical evaluation projects to introduce students to the evaluation profession. After participants complete the internship, formal mentorship relationships developed during the program are encouraged to continue as a part of the alumni experience. Though all components of the program work in concert, mentorship and networking are essential to the GEDI program experience.In this study, we sought to understand perspectives on mentorship among alumni of the GEDI program. Particularly, the current study focuses on what participants think should be the most important characteristics of a GEDI mentor.This study is based on the premise that mentoring is a powerful personal and professional development tool-one that is multidimensional and can serve different purposes. Thus, we expect to contribute to the evolution of the GEDI program by tapping into the experience of former participants and channeling their opinions into an explanation of what sort of mentorship would have been most relevant to them based on their experience, career goals, and professional aspirations.The authors used Q methodology (Brown, 1980;Stephenson, 1953) as the main tool for inquiry. Q is an established methodology used to investigate people' s subjectivity-i.e., opinions, beliefs, or attitudes about an issue. Participants were asked to sort a set of statements that characterize mentorship relationships. Then, participants' rankings were analyzed using correlation and by-person factor analysis (Stephenson, 1953), resulting in three distinct factors interpreted to better understand the mentorship experiences of the GEDI interns. The factors are discussed with implications for the continued mentorship of future GEDI generations.
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