ImproveGrooveMar2010

Issue 33: March 2010

Social Justice and Evaluation
by Leah Goldstein Moses

What is social justice?

The University of California-Berkeley has proposed the following definition:

Social Justice seeks fair distribution of resources, opportunities, and responsibilities; challenges the roots of oppression and injustice; empowers all people to exercise self-determination and realize their full potential; and builds social solidarity and community capacity for collaborative action.

Why social justice in evaluation? As evaluators, we frequently are concerned about social justice for two primary reasons:

Evaluation processes and findings can be used to promote social justice
Social justice principals can be applied in the design, implementation and interpretation of evaluation

The table below summarizes how the principles of social justice intersect with evaluation.

Social justice principle	Promoting social justice with evaluation	Applying principals to evaluation
Ensure fair distribution of resources, opportunities and responsibilities	Describe current distribution of resources, opportunities and responsibilities Determine impact of different interventions Share evaluation findings with those who can impact distribution patterns	Ensure that there is not undue burden on people to contribute to evaluation Encourage shared responsibility to design evaluation Devote appropriate resources to evaluation: enough so findings are valid, but not at expense of others’ resources
Challenge the roots of oppression and injustice	Explore known roots of oppression and injustice Examine relationships between oppression, injustice and program implementation or effect Determine impact of interventions on oppression and injustice Share evaluation findings with those who can influence oppression and injustice	Ensure that evaluation methods are equally accessible to all respondents Treat respondents respectfully and sensitively Include questions that would help in understanding relationship between oppression, injustice and evaluation subject Address power dynamics when planning and implementing evaluation
Empower people to exercise self-determination and realize their potential	Engage people in using evaluation findings to make decisions and improve their lives Establish validity of people’s experiences and expectations	Include a wide variety of stakeholders in designing, implementing and interpreting evaluation Build the capacity of individuals to use evaluation methods in their lives and work
Build social solidarity and community capacity for collaborative action	Build consensus about evaluation findings Help determine what findings suggest for future action	Support participants, staff and other stakeholders in contributing to evaluation Collaboratively explore implications of findings and what they suggest for action Build consensus about how findings should be interpreted

The programs and organizations we evaluate are frequently interested in how their services contribute to social justice. Social justice principals can guide the evaluation process and how findings are used. For further information, see:

Resources:

Kushner, S. How does evaluation create options to enhancing social justice? Harvard Family Research Project, Evaluation Exchange. 2005. Available at http://www.hfrp.org/evaluation/the-evaluation-exchange

University of California-Berkely. Social Justice Symposium. http://socialwelfare.berkeley.edu/sjs/

Performing Arts Workshop: 45 years of promoting social justice
by Jessica Mele, Performing Arts Workshop (San Francisco)

Double Bracket: Performing Arts Workshop was established in 1965 to provide a creative outlet for inner-city teenagers. With schools and community centers as her laboratory, Workshop Founder Gloria Unti developed a teaching method based on the conviction that the creative process is a dynamic vehicle for learning, problem-solving, and communication. With a conviction that so-called “at-risk” youth had a number of assets that were never recognized, the Workshop serves economically and educationally disadvantaged students, English Learners, Special Education students, and juvenile offenders.

Performing Arts Workshop is particularly interested in the social justice issues of (1) access and (2) empowerment.

Access. Over the years, school-based arts programs have been continually stripped of resources. Youth depend on family and their community for arts access. Those with the fewest resources have also had the least exposure to and participation in the arts.

We believe that the arts are a critical part of a high-quality education. At Performing Arts Workshop, we have seen how learning in the arts helps students build the skills that they will need later in life. These skills, neglected when mainstream education focuses intensely on reading and math, include leadership, critical thinking, healthy relationship-building, and communication skills. By offering arts residencies in high-poverty schools, the Workshop addresses this imbalance and helps prepare all students for success in school, life and work in the 21st century.

Empowerment. The Workshop’s programming goes beyond the technical instruction of an art form to build critical thinking skills through our teaching methodology, the Cycle of Artistic Inquiry (perception – conception – expression – reflection – revision). This model allows youth to explore their world, describe how they perceive it, and define the world around them in terms meaningful to them. By interacting with other youth and with professional artists, they can do so much more than learn dance steps or musical notes; students can develop new ideas about their world.

Cycle of Artistic Inquiry Image

Cycle of Artistic Inquiry

Recently I observed a second grade Theatre class which incorporated all five aspects of the Cycle. The Performing Arts Workshop teaching artist led students in a series of frozen poses. Students first were asked to “make a low shape with your body, bringing your body low to the ground,” and then, punctuated by the beat of a drum, were asked to make “a high shape, high away from the ground”—expressing their conceptions of the physical space. The teaching artist pointed out one student, Caleb, whose “low” pose was particularly interesting. Unlike other students who crouched low, Caleb bent from the waist and extended his index finger to touch the ground. The teaching artist pointed this out to the class: “Ah, look at this,” she said, indicating for other students to watch, “ – very gentle, with only one finger.”

In the next portion of the lesson, she then called upon Caleb to re-create his pose, and led the students to reflect by asking them what was interesting about it. What do his legs look like? (bent, low to the ground) What does his face look like? (focused, staring straight ahead) What is he doing differently from what you did? (gently touching the floor with one finger) The teaching artist then guided the students to revise the original pose by using the pose as they moved about the room and engaging the Workshoip class m in a conversation on an actor’s “objective”: Why was his body bent in just that way? What objectives could you use? How does that change the pose? By using the full artistic cycle, students evaluated their own artistic choices, the outcomes of those choices,and then experiment with different choices and different outcomes. They became authors of their own creative work, and contributed to the work of their peers.

Jessica Mele is the Deputy Director for the Performing Arts Workshop.

Social Justice Grants and RFPs

by Susan Murphy

Corporation for National and Community Service
The newly-created Social Innovation Fund will make grants of up to $10 million to nonprofit community-based organizations working to solve critical social challenges in low-income communities to address critical social challenges in the priority issue areas of:

Economic Opportunity– Increasing economic opportunities for economically disadvantaged individuals
Youth Development and School Support– Preparing America’s youth for success in school, active citizenship, productive work, and healthy and safe lives
Healthy Futures– Promoting healthy lifestyles and reducing the risk factors that can lead to illness

Twenty percent of this grant can be used for evaluation. Please click here for more information.

Alan B. Slifka Foundation

This small family foundation focuses its grant making in the field of coexistence -- the proactive embrace of diversity and difference. They fund only US-based, nonprofit organizations and are interested in proposals that address human rights issues through cooperative, cross-group work. Requests begin with a Letter of Interest (LOI). Grant amounts are usually $10,000 or less. Funds are for general operating, program and project support. Please click here for more information.

The Ms. Foundation for Women

The Ms. Foundation for Women builds women's collective power across race and class to address the root causes of injustice. This grant supports two specific areas: expanding the availability of affordable child care and improving the quality of child care jobs; and securing training and job set-asides for women in emerging green sectors. U.S. nonprofit organizations are eligible to apply. Please click here for more information.