Chapter 4: From the Root: Power, Equity, and the Transition From Graduate Student to Novice Practitioner

An equity- and justice-centered evaluation method course can be a catalyst for connecting evaluation theory to practice and foster the cultural competence required in culturally responsive evaluation (Hood et al., 2005). This chapter offers students’ perspectives on taking an applied evaluation course that cultivated the tools needed to navigate the sociopolitical and ethical complexities intrinsic to evaluation (Hall et al., 2023). The authors highlight insights around developing the authors’ identities as (novice) evaluators, which could inform the creation and refinement of future evaluation courses. The authors introduce collaborative autoethnography as an analysis tool for understanding how an evaluation course can connect theory, practice, and engagement with identity while offering the space for social commentary (Holt, 2003). Collaborative autoethnography allows researchers to turn their collective observations and experiences into rich qualitative data (Roy & Uekusa, 2020). In this work, the authors ask: (1) how do graduate students navigate bridging theories of social justice and critical evaluation with praxis based on their intersectional identities? and (2) what classroom dynamics empower novice practitioners to prioritize social inequities and power dynamics within evaluation? The authors’ perspectives were informed by three community evaluation projects undertaken in the course, all dealing with issues of marginalization (Madison, 1992), grounded in a transformational worldview that espouses values of social justice and empowerment (Mertens & Wilson, 2018). Using thematic analysis of the authors’ assignments and retrospective focus group discussions, the authors share the authors’ journey through understanding the awkward process of transitioning from student to practitioner and emphasizing how positionality links to epistemologies, ontologies, and methodologies (Greene, 2006).