If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu

2 min read · Sept 1, 2023
New Power Labs

What gets measured, gets managed. We pile up data for compliance and impact reports, and as systems get rolling, existing metrics become easier and cheaper to collect. An important report asks us to consider whether inequity is built into these measures.

For instance, metrics can misalign with what a community values and thereby misrepresent what qualifies as harmful or beneficial: a social services agency can measure overcrowding and miss the cultural value of living with extended family, or measure wealth accumulation as a marker of progress but overlook the benefit of sending money home.

The report further articulates how metrics can reinforce a sense of superiority or inferiority, and how the very act of conducting a study using metrics based on dominant culture can tangibly impact study participants. The way we collect data on our programming may actually reinforce our own biases, and participants may be impacted by the ways in which their behaviours are being measured. 

The report highlights the powerful example of a study evaluating a prison-based fatherhood program: after speaking with survey participants to hear how they framed their own experience, the study moved from measuring recidivism, stress and depression levels to metrics capturing pride and the reconstruction of masculinity of incarcerated fathers. When done well, data capture can support stronger outcomes.

Contributed by: Kasha Huk

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