Givin’ Stakeholders the Mic

Abstract

Social justice–oriented evaluation approaches are described as participatory, culturally and contextually responsive, and self-empowering. These evaluation approaches call for the genuine participation of stakeholders for sound evaluations, particularly those outside of decision-making and service providing. Similarly, hip-hop is commonly characterized as liberating, educative, and critically responsive. Further, hip-hop engages marginalized groups around the world through creative practices such as urban art and disk jockeying, reflecting the authentic evaluative voice of these groups. In this article, we draw links between evaluation and hip-hop to identify hip-hop as useful and relevant to social justice–oriented evaluation approaches. Establishing connections between evaluation and hip-hop is important to evaluation, given the field’s current call for meaningful stakeholder participation—especially in settings that service youth and other often overlooked groups.