The Social Context of Evaluative Research

Abstract

Evaluation takes place in a social context that influences research design, selection of variables, the written report, and the timing of its release. There are also consequences for program implementors, for those subject to the program, and for the evaluators. Evaluations and evaluators may become involved in political conflict within the subject system and conflict external to it as well. The present study makes use of archival data to illustrate the issues in evaluations of the Gary plan of education that took place between 1914 and 1918. Suggestions for confronting political and social realities surrounding evaluation emerge from an application of concepts deriving from the sociology of knowledge.