Evaluation Theory Award

DCU School of Education Studies Adjunct Professor, Stafford Hood has been awarded the prestigious Paul F. Lazarsfeld Evaluation Theory Award at the 2015 American Evaluation Association meeting in Chicago. The award is made to individuals whose work on evaluation theory has led to the interrogating and reconceptualisation of the assumptions, goals, and practices of evaluation. Recipients are acknowledged as leaders in the field evaluation and are recognised for their sustained contributions to the influence of theory of evaluation.In the citation accompanying the award the American Evaluation Association cited Professor Hood’s lifelong commitment to bringing the concepts of culture and cultural responsiveness to our understanding of what it means to do good evaluations. Citing his mentorship of generations of young evaluators and his groundbreaking academic work in the field of culturally responsive evaluation the AEA highlighted the importance of Stafford Hood’s career to the development of evaluation theory in the US and worldwide. In his response Prof. Hood emphasised that he saw himself as being a line of continuity from many of the great evaluation theorists who have worked in the University of Illinois, not least his great mentor and friend Prof Terry Denny. He further indicated that while he recognised the personal honour implicit in the award he felt that it was really a recognition for the work done by the broader community of evaluators who have coalesced around the Centre for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. He urged all present to redouble their efforts to embed culturally responsive modes of evaluation and assessment into all aspects of evaluation and to use this as a lens to critique what we do, how we do it and why we do it.

Stafford Hood is the Sheila M. Miller Professor of Education, Associate Dean for Research and Research Education, and Founding Director of the Centre for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is an Adjunct Professor at the School of Education Studies, Dublin City University and a member of the Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment research group at the Centre for Evaluation, Quality and Assessment, DCU.