Rationality to ritual: The multiple roles of evaluation in governmental processes

The disillusion with social science evaluation can be partly attributed to an overly narrow view of the function of evaluation. In the accepted model, evaluation functions to provide information needed by rational decision-makers for discrete decisions. But evaluations often cannot perform this function. However, evaluation often does serve other functions. In one such function, it acts as a means for managing conflict and promoting social change. It often also stimulates program staff to critically examine their assumptions and behavior. Consideration of these additional functions leads to suggestions for changes in recruitment of evaluators and in the definition of the evaluators' role. Finally, one can view evaluation as a societal ritual whose function is to calm the citizenry and to perpetuate an image of government rationality.The Stanford Evaluation Consortium is supported by a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation. Robert E. Floden is Assistant Professor of Education at Michigan State University. Stephen S. Weiner is Assistant Professor of Education at Stanford University.     

Review essay

Lauren Weiner has written on Latin American affairs for the American Spectator,the Washington Times,and many other publications.     

Migrants,refugees and foreign policy: prevention and intervention strategies

The authors discuss policy development options to deal with migrants and refugees to developed countries. "Our principal argument--perhaps to state the obvious--is that international migration and refugee movements are foreign policy, not simply domestic, issues. Nevertheless, citizens and policy makers are all too often unaware that if they want to secure their borders against unwanted population flows, this cannot be done simply by unilateral decisions to regulate entry." The focus is on Germany and the United States.     

Beyond labeling: The case of the mentally retarded

This paper provides a review of the sociological literature on the mentally retarded. It attempts to analyze the reasons why the mentally retarded have been so thoroughly de-valued in our society that even social scientists ignore them as an object of study. The literature that does exist is primarily confined to the mildly retarded and generally applies labeling theory to understand the processes by which individuals unable to succeed in institutions such as schools are diagnosed as retarded. Studies employing labeling theory either ignore the severely retarded or allow the medical model as the only appropriate framework for understanding these populations.The failure to include the severely retarded in the general analysis of the problems of the handicapped by labeling theorists indicates a deficiency in the theory rather than the group excluded. A more critical perspective on the handicapped is required which ties the analysis to the study of other surplus populations such as the poor, the illiterate and other disposessed groups. The treatment of the severely retarded provides a looking-glass into the way our society can so de-value a dependent population that its very survival can be questioned.A version of this paper was presented to the Southern Sociological Society Meetings, Memphis, Tennessee, 1982.     

When death is the sanction—United States and worldwide perspectives

Conclusion Gross and Mauro are probably correct in concluding that in the United States McCleskey ... certainly seems to represent a final decision to give up any pretense that the death penalty can be tamed.8 Current attempts at judicial oversight in the United States have proved as ineffective in bridling the discretion of capital case decision makers as were prior attempts at legislative and gubernatorial oversight. The historical lesson appears to be unmistakable: the nation must either abolish the death penalty or suffer its improper application and imposition. The worldwide pattern documented by Hood reinforces this conclusion; when the death penalty is on a country's statute books, it will be used—but, sooner or later, improperly so. No attempts at judicial or other forms of vigilance have proved this prediction to be incorrect—no matter how few cases have been permitted to flow through the system and no matter how principled have been the system and its officials.B.A., Queens College 1969; M. A., University of Pennsylvania 1973; Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania 1978.