Foundations of Empowerment Evaluation

David M. Fetterman is the President and CEO of Fetterman & Associates, an international ethnographic and evaluation consultation firm. He works in a wide range of settings, ranging from townships in South Africa to Google in Silicon Valley. Clients and sponsors include: the U.S. Department of Education, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Hewlett Packard Philanthropy, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and Arkansas Department of Education. David has also provided consultation services for the: Ministry of Education in Japan, Ministry of Health in Brazil, Ministry of Health in Ethiopia, and Te Puni Kokiri (Ministry of Maori Development) in New Zealand. He concurrently serves as a member of the faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute and the University of Charleston. Dr. Fetterman has over 25 years of experience at Stanford University. He was a Consulting Professor of Education in the School of Education and the Director of Evaluation in the School of Medicine at Stanford University. Formerly, he served as a Professor and Research Director at the California Institute of Integral Studies, Principal Research Scientist at the American Institutes for Research, and a Senior Associate and Project Director at RMC Research Corporation. He received his PhD from Stanford University in educational and medical anthropology. David is a past-president of the American Anthropological Association's Council on Anthropology and Education and the American Evaluation Association. He is a Fellow of the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology. David received the Top Anthropologist of the Year 2019 Award; George and Louise Spindler Award, for outstanding contributions to educational anthropology; and the Ethnographic Evaluation Award. He also received the Paul Lazarsfeld Award for Outstanding Contributions to Evaluation Theory and the Myrdal Award for Cumulative Contributions to Evaluation Practice-the American Evaluation Association's highest honors. Fetterman has contributed to a variety of encyclopedias and is the author of Ethnography: Step by Step; Excellence and Equality: A Qualitatively Different Perspective on Gifted and Talented Education; and Empowerment Evaluation in the Digital Villages: Hewlett-Packard's $15 Million Race Toward Social Justice. Dr. Fetterman is the editor of: Ethnography in Educational Evaluation; Educational Evaluation: Ethnography in Theory, Practice, and Politics; Speaking the Language of Power: Communication, Collaboration, and Advocacy (translating ethnography into action); Qualitative Approaches to Evaluation in Education: The Silent Scientific Revolution; Empowerment Evaluation: Knowledge and Tools for Self-assessment, Evaluation Capacity Building, and Accountability; Empowerment Evaluation Principles in Practice; and Foundations of Empowerment. (Details of the projects are available at http://www.drdavidfetterman.com.).

Introduction Introducing Empowerment Evaluation as Part of the Intellectual Landscape of Evaluation Background and Theory Exploring the Background and Theory of Empowerment Evaluation with Relevant Examples and Tools Three Steps Presenting the Three Steps of Empowerment Evaluation and Related Facets Four Case Examples Highlighting the Steps of Empowerment Evaluation with Four Case Examples A High Stakes Case Example Documenting the Utility, Credibility, and Rigor of Empowerment Evaluation in a High-Stakes Arena-Accreditation The Standards Applying the Standards to Empowerment Evaluation Caveats Discussing Caveats and Concerns About Empowerment Evaluation A Dialogue Distinguishing Empowerment Evaluation From Other Approaches The World Wide Web Using the Internet as a Tool to Disseminate Empowerment Evaluation Worldwide Conclusion Concluding by Speaking One's Truth About the Strengths, Limitations, and Conditions of Empowerment Evaluation

"Fetterman offers down-to-earth, clearly written descriptions and explanations of an approach that reconciles the contingencies of organizational practice with the standards and principles of evaluation accountability. He adroitly bridges the gap between the subjectivity of self-evaluation and the objectivity of external evaluation by showing with case examples and detailed methods, forms, and narrative why empowerment evaluation extends the reach of standard evaluation practice." -- Dennis Mithaug "Professor Fetterman's book should be ready by all practicing evaluators and scholars in evaluation. It will very likely open the minds of traditional evaluators to new functions and roles of evaluation." -- Madhabi Chatterji