With Power Comes Great Responsibility: How to Use Research and Evaluations to Tell Stories in Service of Equity

This is the sixth installment of a 12-part blog series discussing doing evaluation in service of racial equity as part of a collaboration with the Kellogg Foundation. The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not represent the views of any partner organizations, including the Kellogg Foundation.

Researchers and evaluators are superheroes. Okay, so there are no capes involved, but we are mighty storytellers, tasked with culling and mining bits of data from participants and constructing a meaningful, cohesive story of reality from our findings. And these stories and evaluation practices must proactively focus on storytelling that avoids harmful narratives and elevates the historical and contextual factors that keep structural racism in place.

How Research and Story Make the Perfect Pair

Similar to other professional storytellers (i.e., filmmakers, journalists, etc.), researchers and evaluators draw inspiration from their own values and lived experiences. This inspiration can drive research agendas, determine the types of questions asked and decide the stories we tell.

History has given us countless examples of scientific racism being used to validate flawed biological assertions. Researchers from the eugenics era created stories that justified white superiority and provided “evidence” needed to fuel systemic forms of anti-Black racism, like segregation.

They reflected prevailing societal values at the time and also the pattern of devaluing Black and Brown people and their bodies

—Deb Roy (2018), cited in the Kellogg Foundation Practice Guide Series

Although we’ve evolved beyond that specific era of misguided “science”, similar thinking and practices haven’t been completely uprooted, which is why it is so important we remain committed to telling stories through research and evaluation that are in service of social justice and racial equity.

Narrative Shifts in Male Survivor Support

To thoughtfully do so, we have to acknowledge the stories that influence our values because they are linked to personal and societal beliefs. And once established through research findings and related stories, these values and beliefs can reproduce helpful or harmful assumptions that can negatively affect those most deeply impacted by racial inequity and social injustice.

While we still observe such practices, we also see examples of researchers countering harmful narratives. For example, RTI’s Male Survivors of Violence project reflects the significant relationship between research and story. In 2020, RTI researchers led a national evaluation of 12 demonstration sites to develop and use innovative techniques to:

1. identify male survivors of violence
2. remove the stigma of receiving services
3. break the cycle of violence that unattended trauma can breed

A Personal Story with Profound Implications

The research team created a video to communicate relevant findings to service providers. The video features the real-life experience of a young Black man who was shot multiple times and hospitalized while going to pick up a prescription for his grandmother. From the ambulance to the hospital, details of his case required consultation with police officers, emergency responders, and medical doctors. These groups of people represent systems designed to protect, serve, and do no harm to people in their care. Unfortunately, their portrayed attitudes toward his case were informed by negative stereotypes and stories about what this young Black man represents in their minds, leading them to make harmful assumptions about his culpability in a gun violence incident. The assumptions made impacted the care he received.

In interviews conducted with program staff, one service provider recalled a community member asking, “Why are we investing in kids who are committing crimes?”  That very question represents the relationship between the stories we tell ourselves about who is worthy of investment and who actually ends up experiencing little investment or even worse, divestment.

Changing Narratives for Support and Equity

Ultimately, the team of researchers leading this evaluation concluded that one important cultural change needed to happen to effectively provide support: there’s a need to shift from the idea of men causing violence to seeing men as survivors of violence. This recommendation implies an urgent call to redefine the parameters of victimhood and violence in a way that offers a more expanded view of who is “deserving” of support. The research finding is revamping existing stories about violence so that affected men are encouraged to pursue help from service providers.

Throughout this example evaluation and video, stories, values, and beliefs are a present force. The video itself highlights a truly vulnerable personal story about a young Black man being judged by other people’s values and beliefs.  Stories colored the way health and public safety professionals regarded the young man’s condition and approached his care. Stories and values also informed a featured community narrative about who’s worthy of having trauma services available to them. And even the evaluation outcomes themselves present a value laden process, likely inspired by the lived experiences of the researchers and their understanding about the cycle of unresolved trauma and healing in male survivors of violence.

You’ve Got the Power

The stories that our research findings tell have the power to perpetuate harmful narratives or create powerful narratives of hope and change. Embedding equity should not be a checkbox exercise, but rather it is a practice that is continuously improved so that researchers and evaluators advance solutions that uproot systemic inequities. Acknowledging and interrogating personally held opinions that are reinforced by stories and related mental models was essential to conducting this evaluation. It also happens to be a valuable way to tell evidence-informed stories in service of social justice and racial equity.

As you conduct research and evaluations, be mindful that your findings tell a story that can be a catalyst for social change. Tending to the stories we tell is an integral part of the process of doing work in service of racial equity.

Consider the reflection questions below as you think about how to create real world systemic change: 

1. What personal stories, values, and beliefs am I bringing to this research/evaluation?
2. What are some existing stories about participants in my research that are validated or generated by data?    
   1. Within these stories, are there any groups that could be perceived as victims or villains? Protagonists or antagonists? Are my research questions or evaluation materials supporting or informed by those perceptions?
3. Will my work contribute to existing narratives established within research or present a counternarrative that tells a new kind of story?
   1. How will the story of my research findings advance our understanding of racial equity?
4. If I could tell an ideal story about what success in racial equity looks like in practice, based on recommendations from my research findings or evaluation outcomes, what would I say?
   1. How would I describe the cast of characters and their roles?
   2. What elements in the story are currently missing?
   3. How can I ensure community voices have a dominant role in narrating that reimagined reality?

For more insights on how to embed equity in your evaluation and research practice, check out the Kellogg Foundation’s guides on Doing Evaluation in Service of Racial Equity. To learn more about narrative change research at RTI, check out the Narrative Lab.