ABSTRACT
Theory-based evaluation (TBE) approaches that now play an important role in evaluation emphasize the need for utilizing theoretical thinking as a way around the black-box trap, in which the inability of an evaluation to account for what happens between the program input and its outcome leads to unsatisfactory results. Theories may illuminate not only how something good ought to happen or whether a thing did or did not happen, but also for whom, where, and why it happened. This chapter looks at the role of US sociology in setting this scene. It discusses the way the discipline reacted to the call for social program evaluation during the wave of Great Society programs in the 1960s, examines how the tension between methodology and theory in the discipline has influenced the progress of evaluation, and finally investigates the legacy of US sociology with regard to recent developments in evaluation practice.
