Review Essay: Evaluation as Practical Hermeneutics—or The Long and Stony Road from a Theory of Practice to Evaluation Practice

Abstract

Contrary to what one might have ex­pected from its title, Evaluation Practice Reconsidered by Thomas A. SCHWANDT is a highly theoretical and largely programmatic volume. Its focus is on an attempt to understand evaluation as a variant of practical hermeneutics, with the result that the book is not so much concerned with the actual practice as with a metatheoretical frame­work of evaluation. This framework is interesting and in some respects stimulating, and leads readers on to further issues, but those who are interested in methodological issues and expect answers to their practical research problems should not be misled by the title: evaluation practice, in the sense of the expectations, methods and challenges of everyday research practice, is mentioned only in passing. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0401291