Culturally Responsive Evaluation

Culturally responsive evaluation (CRE) is an evaluation approach that places culture and the community of focus at the center of the evaluation, helps to support community empowerment, and has a goal of social justice. This entry explains the reasons for the development of CRE, describes its components, details the process used to conduct CRE and how it contributes to social change, and gives an example of CRE in practice.

Historically, culture has been viewed as “noise” in evaluation—a confounding variable and a subjective factor to be controlled for or discounted. Similarly, the context of an evaluand was considered but treated as separate or distinct. Often, evaluators and program developers indicated that a program was supposed to have the same results regardless of culture and context.

The development ...