In today's world, with its preoccupation with impact assessments and results-based management, program evaluation is all too often framed as an affirmation of an official narrative rather than as a source of alternatives. The power of case study is its insistence on opening up rather than suppressing the complexity of social programs, on documenting multiple voices and exploring contested viewpoints. In this way, case study resists the trend towards evaluations that simply focus on 'what works', that reduce the complexity of social life to a single narrative, and to formulations that strip out most of what matters. Now more than ever, as government policies and programs orientate to global economic crisis and its impact on the lives of citizens and communities, we require evaluations that resist information loss and produce richness.

Current conventions in school evaluation focus on accountability, control and compliance. New Zealand offers a distinctive, systemic alternative to school self-evaluation, with developmental and negotiated approaches ingrained throughout the education system, from school inspection to major government schooling improvement initiatives. In New Zealand there is no national testing, other than a Ministry-sponsored (voluntary) formative assessment system designed for school and teacher self-evaluation. This is a form of professional and program evaluation where there is shared power and responsibility between evaluators and those being evaluated. Through a detailed national case study of New Zealand, together with commentaries from international specialists, this volume examines the successes and challenges of this approach to programme evaluation and its generalizability to other educational and professional review settings, and show how education systems can recover a balance between an achievement agenda and a focus on educational quality.

A comprehensive and authoritative overview of issues relating to the evaluation of criminal justice/corrections 'interventions', this unique reference draws on a variety of theoretical, cultural and epistemological perspectives with authors from a range of disciplines and countries. It begins by looking at the purpose of evaluation within criminal justice systems as a historical and conceptual background. Methods outlined for evaluating criminal justice focus on educating readers about the design decisions they may face as evaluators, enabling them to make informed decisions when choosing designs that are not necessarily optimal. It raises the question of who evaluation is for, and a clearly informed discussion of the importance of the full range of stakeholders involved in evaluation and the potential impact of participating in evaluations on different stakeholders is presented. With insight into successful and unsuccessful evaluation from the perspective of those who are being evaluated, and a critical examination of the methodological and conceptual difficulties involved in identifying 'effects', this book concludes by looking ahead to the future of criminal justice evaluation.

In our reforming public institutions it sometimes feels as though the very ground of social and political contracts is shifting. The economic revolution embraced by neo-liberals and neo-conservatives is paralleled by a governance revolution in those same institutions which were designed to protect us from historical swings and ideological roundabouts. Our public institutions - for the most part the public sector and its professional groups - in the eyes of some provided stability, while for others they were a brake on change. Now, however, they have become conduits for political change and reform. We live in an institutional world now dubbed the New Public Management (NPM). In this new landscape evaluators might have to think afresh about how to position ourselves in relation to institutional ethics and the pursuit of social justice. In this volume contributors give us a start in thinking through such a repositioning, some within the values framework of NPM, others as external observers.

This book is written for research students and their supervisors, for 'program evaluators', and for those researchers who don't call themselves evaluators, but whose research is evaluative. It is aimed, this is to say, at those whose research involves judgment - of policies, practices or organization. judgment of their value, merit or their appropriateness. The involvement of judgment changes the nature of any research and makes particular demands on the researcher in terms of choice and use of method, ethics, political relationships and even emotional capabilities. There are many methodological text-books and models to support the researcher to meet such challenges. This is not one of those. Rather than teach a methodology or propose a model, this book helps you to think methodologically - i.e. to solve methodological, political, emotional issues as they arise, using your own judgment and your own resources. There are no blueprints for dealing with the ethics and the politics of evaluative research, there is only your ability to manage complexity and unpredictability. This book supports you in developing just that. Since this is an intellectual challenge the book offers both theory and method combined, and is laced with practical examples.

This book is written for research students and their supervisors, for 'program evaluators', and for those researchers who don't call themselves evaluators, but whose research is evaluative. It is aimed, this is to say, at those whose research involves judgment - of policies, practices or organization. judgment of their value, merit or their appropriateness. The involvement of judgment changes the nature of any research and makes particular demands on the researcher in terms of choice and use of method, ethics, political relationships and even emotional capabilities. There are many methodological text-books and models to support the researcher to meet such challenges. This is not one of those. Rather than teach a methodology or propose a model, this book helps you to think methodologically - i.e. to solve methodological, political, emotional issues as they arise, using your own judgment and your own resources. There are no blueprints for dealing with the ethics and the politics of evaluative research, there is only your ability to manage complexity and unpredictability. This book supports you in developing just that. Since this is an intellectual challenge the book offers both theory and method combined, and is laced with practical examples.