‘We know it works..’: The Troubled Families Programme and the pre-determined boundary judgements of decontextualised policy evaluation

Silver, D.; Crossley, S.

Abstract

This article draws on the Troubled Families Programme (TFP) to highlight the ways in which particular contexts – such as socioeconomic and symbolic structures – are neglected in forms of evaluation with an establishment orientation. The article problematises two key aspects of decontextualised evaluation: firstly, the privileging of pre-determined relations of cause and effect; and secondly, the unproblematized framing of policy problems. More contextualised forms of evaluation are presented as a way to open up boundaries of investigation. Lastly, it is argued that an anti-naturalist foundation for evaluation can broaden the scope of learning beyond the original framing of a policy.

Citation

Silver, D., & Crossley, S. (2020). ‘We know it works..’: The Troubled Families Programme and the pre-determined boundary judgements of decontextualised policy evaluation. Critical Social Policy, 40(4), 566-585. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261018319892443

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 30, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Dec 18, 2019
• Publication Date: Nov 1, 2020
• Deposit Date: Jul 13, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 29, 2021
• Journal: Critical Social Policy
• Print ISSN: 0261-0183
• Electronic ISSN: 1461-703X
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 40
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 566-585
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0261018319892443
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1266601