Evaluation for People or with People? How Participatory Approaches Enhance Social Justice

Participatory approaches to evaluation that effectively addressed resignation and exclusion through community organising in the 1960s have re-emerged and can play a key role in the struggle for social justice. Although long neglected, they are gaining increasing interest for their potential to mitigate the effects of neoliberal politics and successive crises on democracy and social participation. This chapter aims to explore the methods used by the European Social Fund (ESF) to evaluate employment and social inclusion programmes and their interaction with local and national evaluations, in order to understand how and with what results participatory evaluation is carried out. Drawing on theoretical discussions on social participation and social justice, we choose the case study as the most appropriate method to comparatively analyse the conditions and values of participatory evaluation at local, national, and European levels during recent programming periods. The findings show a growing concern among policymakers and stakeholders to listen to people’s voices to better meet their needs through targeted support, but more meaningful use of participatory evaluation is needed to enhance participation and social justice.