Chapter 6: An Untold Story in Evaluation Roots: Reid E. Jackson and His Contributions toward Culturally Responsive Evaluation at Three Quarters of a Century

Recent scholarly attention to understanding culture, diversity, and social justice in education and the social sciences has far-reaching implications for the discipline and profession of evaluation. The evaluation community’s recent attention to this matter suggests that either cultural context has been insufficiently addressed by most evaluation approaches or beneficial culturally appropriate approaches and explanations have been underdeveloped as they pertain to communities of color who remain on society’s periphery. Omitting the centrality and relevance of culture in the context of evaluation leaves open the distinct possibility that too many variables are not understood and in many cases misunderstood. This may indeed be one of the important explanations about notions of difference, power relations, and equity. Consequently, the rich intellectual history of the evaluation profession may be impoverished as a result of an overemphasis by those who some have anointed as “fathers” (or “mothers,” in recent history) of the field.