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The Need

Who is doing sci­ence has sig­nif­i­cant impli­ca­tions for the ques­tions that are asked, the meth­ods that are cho­sen, the pat­terns that are observed and the rec­om­men­da­tions that are made. While researchers and eval­u­a­tors aim to reduce bias­es, it is impos­si­ble to entire­ly shed indi­vid­ual and cul­tur­al expe­ri­ences at the lab­o­ra­to­ry door.

To avoid cor­re­lat­ed bias­es in how prob­lems and pop­u­la­tions are stud­ied, researchers from mul­ti­ple back­grounds and expe­ri­ences must con­tribute. Where­as life prac­tices, per­spec­tives, val­ues and moti­va­tions are indi­vid­u­al­ly nuanced, they are often cor­re­lat­ed with demo­graph­ic group­ings, such as race and eth­nic­i­ty, social class and gender.

The lack of racial and eth­nic diver­si­ty with­in enti­ties that steer the con­struc­tion of knowl­edge, such as uni­ver­si­ties and research insti­tutes, lim­its our knowl­edge of social prob­lems and jeop­ar­dizes our abil­i­ty to resolve them. The lack of diver­si­ty in eval­u­a­tion firms and pol­i­cy think tanks also con­strains our abil­i­ty to use knowl­edge to improve prac­tices and poli­cies in social services.

The ben­e­fits of diver­si­ty can extend well beyond the con­struc­tion of knowl­edge to social inno­va­tion. Diver­si­ty pro­motes cre­ative think­ing by expand­ing a group’s capac­i­ty for view­ing issues or prob­lems from mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives, angles and van­tage points.

The Foun­da­tion’s Lead­ers in Equi­table Eval­u­a­tion and Diver­si­ty takes advan­tage of the increas­ing num­bers of under­rep­re­sent­ed minor­i­ty researchers who are earn­ing doc­tor­al degrees and who have already obtained the nec­es­sary method­olog­i­cal skill sets to con­duct rig­or­ous research. Many bright minds are ready to pur­sue the world of eval­u­a­tion if afford­ed the oppor­tu­ni­ties and resources to build their capac­i­ty as evaluators.

Program Information

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