Conducting Democratic Evaluations where Democratic Principles are not always Practiced

Abstract

Background: Turkey is a fast-developing country facing a lot of different problems. One of the problems is inadequate education. A large project was started to improve Turkish elementary education. The project includes many different purposes from physical refurbishment of school buildings, to increasing technology use in education. The author of this paper carried out a democratic study to evaluate this project. This article reports on what was learned from this evaluation study conducted in Turkey.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to examine how democratic evaluations can be used to help understand the complex realities where undemocratic ideology has a long history.   

Setting: This evaluation study was conducted in an elementary school from a lower-middle class neighborhood.

Intervention: Not applicable.

Research Design: Qualitative method of inquiry was applied.

Data Collection and Analysis: The data mostly came from the interviews. However document analysis and observations were also conducted. Qualitative data from the interviews and observations were analyzed to interpret meaningful patterns or themes.

Findings: It was concluded that democratic evaluations can serve an important mission by informing the public when the public’s role is limited in the decision making process. Further, democratic evaluators can serve as middle men who transfer information among the stakeholders, helping the evaluated program’s or project’s success. Finally, democratic evaluations can help increase democracy where democratic values are not always obeyed.

Keywords: Democratic evaluation; Turkey; education; democracy; educational technology