This paper argues that health promotion and within that health communication are themselves a particular type of social practice that attempt to disrupt day to day patterns of living to bring about change for better individual and collective health. Inherently relational and dialogical, they require a different approach to evaluation from the experimental approach commonly promulgated as the gold standard in the health sciences. At the centre of all research but particularly evaluation, lie a set of values and particular paradigm. The way any evaluation is done reflects and imposes a particular set of values and in doing so either recreates and reinforces a particular social world or makes a contribution to changing it.

The current debate around the emergence of participatory approaches in evaluation practice suggests that participatory evaluation may be considered an organizational learning praxis, one which facilitates the development of a holistic process of intentional change. Through critical reflection on how participatory evaluation has been conceptualized, this article offers an overview of some of the contextual challenges encountered when using participatory evaluation to enable the creation of learning environments. Given the pluralistic nature of modern organizations and some contextual constraints, evaluators appear to have largely developed a more instrumental type of learning, which may, paradoxically, result in a significant source of resistance to intentional change. This article proposes a process of capacity building for evaluative research (CBER). This process offers a collaborative way of overcoming unforeseen resistance to intentional change by overcoming the challenges found in the relationship between participatory evaluation and organizational learning. The article concludes by suggesting some epistemological and organizational issues that evaluators should take into account when enabling the implementation of a process of CBER in pluralistic organizations.

Participatory Practice explores the core ideas of participatory practice and how theory and practice can be integrated to achieve transformative change.

The ideas in the book are founded on two premises: firstly, that transformative practice begins in the everyday stories that people tell about their lives and that practical theory generated from these narratives is the best way to inform both policy and practice. Secondly, that participatory practice is a tool for examining this knowledge in that it allows practitioners to examine the way they view the world and to situate their local practice within bigger social issues.

The book  is expected to be of interest to both academics and community-based practitioners.

Professor Springett commented: “Writing the book was a transformative experience in itself because we had to cross the divide between our different professions. The idea to write it came from our joint concern for the appropriation of the language of participation by many politicians and agencies without a real examination of what true participation actually consists of."