From the Co-Editors: Building Evaluative Capacity to Examine Issues of Power, Address Sensitive Topics, and Generate Actionable Data

The fourth issue of volume 43 is our fi rst issue as Co-Editors-in-Chief of the American Journal of Evaluation. We have arrived at this point on our journey as Editors of AJE re fl ecting on our capacity as evaluators. While we are seasoned evaluators with decades of experience between us, we fi nd it is necessary to reexamine our role and capacity as evaluators and ask ourselves re fl ective questions such as What authority do we have as evaluators to address issues of power and privilege in the context of an evaluation? How do we determine if our evaluation approaches address vulnerable communities and sensitive topics respectfully? What analytic capacity do we have to produce valid and actionable evidence? And, what is within our capacity, as evaluators, to generate positive change for individuals, communities, and society? The articles we have assembled for this issues provide informed thinking on these and related topics based on the evaluation literature and other fi elds of study. Together, the discourse provided in the seven articles and three method notes in this issue will undoubtedly open up possibilities to re fl ect on and enhance your evaluative capacity as it has ours. The lead article in this issue, Critical Evaluation Capital (CEC): A New Tool for Applying Critical Race Theory to the Evaluand by Alice E. Ginsberg, centers issues of power in evaluation practice by presenting a tool to support critical evaluation approaches that challenge the notion of objectivity, consider evaluation a value-laden enterprise, and position the role of the evaluator as an agent for change. Informed by the lens of critical race theory and community cultural wealth, Ginsberg ’ s tool enhances the capacity of evaluators to pay attention to different types of power within the context of an evaluand. Speci fi cally, the CEC tool converts issues of power into several overlapping categories of “ capital. ” Each category is de fi ned and provides thought-provoking questions useful to explore our authority as evaluators and the role of power and privilege in an evaluation context. To conclude the article, Ginsberg retroactively applies the CEC tool to an evaluation. By