The Other Side of Inequality: Using Standpoint Theories to Examine the Privilege of the Evaluation Profession and Individual Evaluators

Abstract

Social justice evaluation approaches advance antioppressive and culturally responsive methods to mitigate societal inequalities. However, social justice efforts will fall short if they focus solely on one side of inequality: oppression. Accordingly, this article argues that the other side of inequality—privilege—needs to be scrutinized. This article offers standpoint theories as a lens on privilege to reveal how the knowledge achieved from marginalized groups can be useful to make privilege more visible and enhance the objectivity of inquiry. In addition, a concept inspired by standpoint theories, privilege-cognizant scripts, is offered to help evaluators rethink and discover the privilege carried by the field of evaluation and our individual identities. Standpoint theories awaken evaluators to the idea that although privilege can have negative consequences for evaluation practice, it can also be used productively to advance social justice.