We could all use a little change: Reflections on Equity as Practice

This is the final installment of a 12-part blog series discussing doing evaluation in service of racial equity as part of a collaboration with the Kellogg Foundation. The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not represent the views of any partner organizations, including the Kellogg Foundation.

Remember to imagine and craft the worlds you cannot live without, just as you dismantle the ones you cannot live within. ― Ruha Benjamin

RTI’s Transformative Research Unit for Equity (TRUE) is transforming traditional research practices and mindsets to reimagine and create systems that advance racial equity and social justice. Centering equity in our work as evaluators and researchers demands that we dream big. We imagine what is possible to focus on the long-term effort needed to create sustainable change. 

In the Equity as Practice Blog Series, we have discussed how we can design and conduct research and evaluation in service of racial equity. This work fits into a broader change in the evaluation field, where the conversations on equity are proving to be more than a passing interest. For the evaluation field to thrive and remain relevant, we need to continue to evolve our skills, training, and mindsets. And continue to innovate in how we practice more inclusive science.  

Embedding equity into research and evaluation requires patience, ongoing learning, humility, and intentionality. We know that there is not a one-size-fits-all way to embed equity into your practice and that making mistakes is part of getting better. Many times, you don’t know what you did wrong until it goes wrong: whether and how you take action to correct wrongdoing or harm is where equity as a practice shows up. This is where meaningful and sustained change happens and continues to happen as you get more experience and gain comfort doing evaluation differently. 

The Kellogg Foundation guides on Doing Evaluation in Service of Racial Equity challenge us as researchers and evaluators to debunk myths, diagnose biases and systems, and deepen our community engagement. The path we take to embed equity in our work can sometimes feel like a never-ending road. Changes in habits often take time to shift and stick. Sometimes we wish that changes happened faster, especially when we put a lot of effort into trying new ways of working. The pace of change can feel so slow. From our work we have learned that small changes and big shifts alike are important. Doing research and evaluation differently means we are taking risks when we push to evolve methodological orthodoxies, center community priorities, and create more inclusive spaces.

Equity as a practice is not a linear process. It requires learning new ideas and techniques, while also unlearning what we, as well-trained researchers and evaluators, assume works best for communities. Throughout the process, it’s equally important to make the invisible work seen, to seek community from other researchers and evaluators, and share strategies used to navigate challenges and build resources. Together, we build a collective equity centered practice.

“Evaluations and evaluators are part of an ecosystem of philanthropic organizations, academic institutions, scientist establishments, public agencies, professional associations and the consulting industry—all of which have to do business differently if the practice of evaluation can aid in progress toward racial equity” ― Kellogg Guide 3, Doing Evaluation in Service of Racial Equity: Deepen Community Engagement. 

Changing Systems

In a previous blog on Applying a Systems Lens to Advance Health Equity we described the ecosystem of change agents that actively work to address health disparities and advance health equity. We emphasized that doing equity work should not be done in a silo as this limits progress that may come with connecting resources, aligning strategies, and building relationships among other actors looking to advance equity. These examples point to the central role of addressing systems if our work is to lift up evidence-based solutions that get to the root causes of inequities. It’s important to be able to move the work forward while fully acknowledging you are both part of & navigating through the system you are trying to change to advance equity. 

Organizations that are part of these ecosystems can also present operational barriers that prevent us from fully doing equity centered work. We often grapple with partner organizations that have other needs or priorities or function within resource constraints themselves. Organizations then need to evolve with us to embed equity as a common practice so that our systems do not unintentionally reproduce inequities (e.g., by considering alternate compensation systems and policies that encourage meaningful community engagement in evaluation).

Looking ahead, the field of evaluation is changing. If we reimagine research and evaluation as having equity as a core practice, then evaluators must have a holistic understanding of equity issues as rooted in systems, recognize the value of doing research differently, and challenge their own biases to deepen partnerships. The field of evaluation would be more expansive in its methods, acknowledge lived experiences as expertise, and incentivized to find solutions to systemic problems.     

We invite other evaluators to reimagine a world where evaluation is centered with equity. 

To read more about ways to center equity in research and evaluation, read TRUE's framework for equity-centered research and the Kellogg Foundation’s recent practice guides. If you haven’t had a chance to read our Equity as Practice Blog Series, you can access links below in our resources summary.