I just want to address the question about the economic classification tool from a few days back (see Sept 9, 2011).
The short answer is `yes`, the voting can definitely be influenced. If that is a concern, there are a couple ways to address it which I will try to outline here as briefly as possible (not all that brief):
1) Closed ranking: as opposed to open ranking which is what you see in the photo. In closed ranking you would pass out pieces of paper for example, and each person would write down the proportions they think apply to each economic class by themselves, the submit the results, which the facilitator would then tally. This approach requires the majority of the group to be literate.
2) A comprehensive list of every family in the community is tabulated, and each family name written on a separate index card. A small group of trusted community members--selected by the larger group, are then given the responsibility to go through the entire `deck`of cards and distribute each family according to the appropriate class. I have never done this, and while it would give a definitive result, it seems like a lot of work as well as being somewhat intrusive of people`s privacy. Maybe if someone reading this has had experience with this variation, they could comment.
The other aspect to consider is that extraction of information is not the primary purpose these types of participatory exercises. The ultimate goal is to get the community themselves thinking about their own situation, and to start to help them look at ways to address their own needs and goals, rather than having outsiders doing all the research, analysis, project design etc, etc. Nevertheless, if you look closely at the photo, you will see that the seed distribution shows that the `rich` class is smallest in proportion, and the mid and `poor`class are approximately equal, with a slight edge perhaps for the mid class. This I think is a reasonable, although not a perfectly precise reflection of reality, especially when one considers that in this particular exercise, the mid-class usually approximates the majority of those attending the meeting--the exercise is a reflection of self, so to speak.
I hope that answers the question. But let me know if it doesn`t.
The short answer is `yes`, the voting can definitely be influenced. If that is a concern, there are a couple ways to address it which I will try to outline here as briefly as possible (not all that brief):
1) Closed ranking: as opposed to open ranking which is what you see in the photo. In closed ranking you would pass out pieces of paper for example, and each person would write down the proportions they think apply to each economic class by themselves, the submit the results, which the facilitator would then tally. This approach requires the majority of the group to be literate.
2) A comprehensive list of every family in the community is tabulated, and each family name written on a separate index card. A small group of trusted community members--selected by the larger group, are then given the responsibility to go through the entire `deck`of cards and distribute each family according to the appropriate class. I have never done this, and while it would give a definitive result, it seems like a lot of work as well as being somewhat intrusive of people`s privacy. Maybe if someone reading this has had experience with this variation, they could comment.
The other aspect to consider is that extraction of information is not the primary purpose these types of participatory exercises. The ultimate goal is to get the community themselves thinking about their own situation, and to start to help them look at ways to address their own needs and goals, rather than having outsiders doing all the research, analysis, project design etc, etc. Nevertheless, if you look closely at the photo, you will see that the seed distribution shows that the `rich` class is smallest in proportion, and the mid and `poor`class are approximately equal, with a slight edge perhaps for the mid class. This I think is a reasonable, although not a perfectly precise reflection of reality, especially when one considers that in this particular exercise, the mid-class usually approximates the majority of those attending the meeting--the exercise is a reflection of self, so to speak.
I hope that answers the question. But let me know if it doesn`t.
No comments:
Post a Comment