Evaluation Practice Reconsidered

Evolution Practice Reconsidered encourages a new way of thinking about the activity of judging the merit, worth, or significance of some human action, such as a policy, program, or project. Yet, it is not about another model or methodology for evolution. Taken collectively, the ideas explored here suggest a way of reasoning about and engaging in evaluation that is not bound either to the characterization of evaluation as applied social science or to efforts to foster the development of evaluation as a professional practice of experts. Rather, the book explores evaluation as practical hermeneutics. Conceived in this way, evaluation is about acquiring an action-oriented self-understanding that is continuous with our ordinary ways of thinking and action in everyday life.

Thomas A. Schwandt is Professor of Education at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where he also holds an appointment in the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory.