The Pursuit of Social Betterment Through Evaluation Practice: A Review of the Literature on Social Justice-Oriented Evaluation and a Taxonomy of Practices

There has been an increasing call for social justice, not just in American society but also within the evaluation profession. Scholars and practitioners like Donna Mertens, Stafford Hood, Karen Kirkhart, Veronica Thomas, and many others have led the movement within the evaluation profession to view evaluation practice as a vehicle for social justice. However, descriptions of social justice-oriented evaluation in the literature tend to lack sufficient detail, leaving many evaluators to wonder exactly what social justice-oriented evaluation is. This article presents a summary of the literature on social justice-oriented evaluation, providing a much-needed description of the approach. This paper also introduces a taxonomy of social justice-oriented evaluation (T-SJOE) practices, developed from the results of the literature review, and presents a framework of social justice-oriented evaluation practices as they are currently discussed in the evaluation literature. T-SJOE is not prescriptive or presumed complete but is presented as a tool for self-reflection and as a resource when planning evaluations. Further development of the T-SJOE is expected and encouraged.