Championing Culturally Responsive Leadership for Evaluation Practice

Abstract

The Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI) program empowers students of color to become adaptive leaders, change agents, partners, and facilitators through exposure to theory, experiential training, leadership development, and mentorship in order to advance culturally responsive evaluation (CRE) practices that respond to context and community values in a respectful and positive manner (Nelson-Barber, LaFrance, Trumbull, & Aburto, 2005). A case study of the first six GEDI cohorts was conducted to evaluate the program' s impact on CRE leadership development. This chapter validates how GEDI transformative leadership strategies can be applied by any profession to champion CRE practitioners and promote a society that values social justice, equity, and democratic change.

La sazón de liderazgo among Latine evaluators to advance LatCREE

“…Research indicates that people from minoritized and historically excluded groups are more likely to benefit from both career and psychosocial mentoring as opposed to white males (career-oriented) and women (psychosocial-oriented) (Carrera, 2002). A meta-analysis of independent samples and four case studies on racial and ethnic differences in mentoring and leadership opportunities in the workforce found that mentoring relationships are critical for the advancement of traditionally underrepresented groups (Aponte-Soto, 2011a, 2011b, 2013. Individuals from Latine communities gravitate towards formal mentors with shared cultural and racial backgrounds who honor their culture and/or race, cultivate safe spaces for learning, and use their prior experiences and knowledge to help them navigate hardships (Brandehoff, 2023;Hernandez, 2022).…”

Latine evaluators and evaluation: Advancing representation and collective agency

“…Following the 2012 meeting, we opted to apply for sessions at the inaugural April 2013 CREA (Aponte-Soto, 2013) meeting in Chicago and the October 2013 AEA meeting in Washington DC (Aponte-Soto & Garcia, 2013;Neubauer & Jimenez, 2013;Neubauer et al, 2013). At the time, we had also been actively engaged in several collaborations linked with AEA's Cultural Competence Workgroup (Jones et al, 2012;Neubauer, 2013;Ozturgut & Aponte-Soto, 2014), the Multiethnic (MIE) Topical Interest Group, and shared scholarly interests.…”

“…A year earlier at the AEA 2012 meeting in Minneapolis, we asked the question “Where are the Latinos at?” We invited attention to AEA, diversity, social justice, and representation, while also recognizing Latine racial diversity and how variations in sociocultural backgrounds, Latin American heritage, and colorism play a significant role that is unique. Following the 2012 meeting, we opted to apply for sessions at the inaugural April 2013 CREA (Aponte‐Soto, 2013) meeting in Chicago and the October 2013 AEA meeting in Washington DC (Aponte‐Soto & Garcia, 2013; Neubauer & Jimenez, 2013; Neubauer et al., 2013). At the time, we had also been actively engaged in several collaborations linked with AEA's Cultural Competence Workgroup (Jones et al., 2012; Neubauer, 2013; Ozturgut & Aponte‐Soto, 2014), the Multiethnic (MIE) Topical Interest Group, and shared scholarly interests.…”

“…At the time, we had also been actively engaged in several collaborations linked with AEA's Cultural Competence Workgroup (Jones et al., 2012; Neubauer, 2013; Ozturgut & Aponte‐Soto, 2014), the Multiethnic (MIE) Topical Interest Group, and shared scholarly interests. Into 2013, we hosted a panel at AEA and shared a series of AEA 365 blog posts (Aponte‐Soto & Neubauer, 2013; Aponte‐Soto & Neubauer, 2014) that offered five directions for Latine evaluators and evaluation, including community space, professional development, mentorship, cross‐cultural partnership, and the development of critical approaches to evaluation, including LatCrit Theory and voices of other Indigenous Latine‐focused writers. We invited deepened focus on training to develop a culturally competent evaluator with a comprehensive understanding of the highly diverse Latine communities and Latine‐oriented models of evaluation (Aponte‐Soto & Neubauer, 2014; Aponte‐Soto & Neubauer, 2017; Neubauer, 2015; Neubauer et al., 2013).…”

A Culturally Adaptive Approach to First Nations evaluation consulting

“…We wish to highlight that culturally responsive evaluation (CRE) is an emerging body of theory that is relevant to considering culturally safe evaluation practice (Aponte-Soto et al, 2014; Chouinard & Cram, 2020; Hood et al, 2015). We believe, however, that by focussing on evaluation practices, culturally responsive evaluation overlooks the importance of organisational governance as an enabling factor.…”