This article presents a new tool called Critical Evaluation Capital (CEC) designed to address issues of equity and social justice in program evaluation. CEC is grounded in the tenants of critical race theory and inspired by Yosso's work on community cultural wealth which raises critical issues of positionality and access. CEC is a system for…

The Best Practices for Mental Health in Child Welfare Consensus Conference focused on developing guidelines in five key areas (screening and assessment, psychosocial interventions, psychopharmacologic treatment, parent engagement, and youth empowerment) related to children's mental health. This paper provides an overview of issues related to the…

Hip-hop culture can be used as a conduit to enhanced cultural competence and practice skills through the individual and community empowerment framework. This framework is introduced as a tool for direct practice that allows social workers to understand the competing messages within hip-hop culture and how they may impact youths by promoting or…

This article introduces a waka tino whakarawea model for evaluating programmes and services for Maori learners. It is based on a set of underlying principles identified in the author's PhD study (Bevan-Brown, 2002). Explanations are provided for eight principles: kaupapa Maori; importance, relevance and beneficence; participation; empowerment,…

This article comments upon James and Pollard's contribution in comparison with perspectives on pedagogy in Japan, where the concept has tended to be discredited by academics. TLRP's clusters of 10 principles are reviewed and found to be persuasive and meaningful, especially in relation to the following points: the emphasis on recognising…

As with many forms of evaluation, empowerment evaluation can be viewed as an ideology that promotes a particular set of social and professional values. Judging the quality and utility of empowerment evaluation thus requires a critical appraisal of the implications of adopting those values.

The paper presents a conceptual framework and methodology developed by the authors to create systematic empirical basis to monitor important social indicators. The focus here is on ways to employ indicators of victimization in school in order to inform a range of constituencies interested in the well being of school children. The paper outlines…

Including youth in the evaluation process can enhance the quality of the inquiry and be empowering for the participants, but it is not without challenges. In this article, several principles for youth-involved research and evaluation are outlined. These come from those who are pioneering this approach and from current research on the dilemmas of…

All evaluators face the challenge of striving to adhere to the highest possible standards of ethical conduct. Translating the AEA's Guiding Principles and the Joint Committee's Program Evaluation Standards into everyday practice, however, can be a complex, uncertain, and frustrating endeavor. Moreover, acting in an ethical fashion can require…

Identifies key factors that should be considered by those engaged in the evaluation of overseas development projects to ensure that the evaluation process leads to the empowerment of local stakeholders. A literature review resulted in the development of seven guidelines for evaluation of overseas development projects. (SLD)

Presents a comprehensive evaluation framework and applies it to a family empowerment program in Montana that was developed as an aspect of welfare reform. The framework encompasses seven areas from developing objectives to developing a sound conceptual framework. (SLD)

Reflects on empowerment evaluation, the use of evaluation to foster improvement and self-determination. Empowerment evaluation uses quantitative and qualitative methods, and usually focuses on program evaluation. Discusses the growth in empowerment evaluation as a result of interest in participatory evaluation. (SLD)

Proposes a framework for characterizing evaluation approaches that consists of the following aspects: context, purpose and social role, phenomena of interest, procedural rules, methods of justification, and sanctions. Illustrates the framework through its application to the debate over the theory and practice of empowerment evaluation. (SLD)

Evaluation of higher education can be described a species of its own with only few connections with other fields of evaluation. When considering the future developments in higher education evaluation (quality assurance), it is useful to observe its similarities and differences with various evaluation approaches in other than higher education…

Describes recent improvements in graphical user interfaces (GUIs) offered by online services. Highlights include design considerations, including computer engineering capabilities and users' abilities; fundamental GUI design principles; user empowerment; visual communication and interaction; and an evaluation of online search interfaces. (LRW)