This volume seeks to address select questions drawn from the matrix of
the complex issues related to culturally responsive evaluation. We ask,
should evaluation be culturally responsive? Is the field heading in the
right direction in its attempt to become more culturally responsive? We
ask, what is culturally responsive evaluation today and what might it
become tomorrow? This edited volume does not promise to deliver answers
to all, most, or even many of the complex answers facing the evaluation
community regarding the role of culture and cultural context in
evaluative theory and practice. This is not a scientific undertaking. We
are not ready for concerns with prediction, explanation or control. We
are ready for serious explorations, however. Even if the evaluation
community cannot articulate the necessary and sufficient conditions for
a culturally relevant evaluation it does know several of the desiderata.
Our concern and the direction of this volume has been reflections of
evaluation theory, history, and practice within the context of culture
with illustrative examples.