Campos, Jennie

(b. 1946, Globe, Arizona). Ed.D. International Education and Development, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; M.Ed. Educational Foundations, University of Hawaii; B.A. Elementary Education, Arizona State University.

Campos has worked as a participatory evaluator and educator in more than 30 developing countries, most recently in postwar settings, including the Sudan, Cambodia, and the Balkans. She has educated more than 800 foreign nationals about basic education and girls' education. Campos uses a common participatory approach in working with highly educated government officials, as well as semiliterate or illiterate parents and community members. Her focus is on using straightforward tools and techniques of participatory learning and action in linking policy makers with program stakeholders to ensure that program planning fits the needs and interests of grassroots constituents. Campos continues to work as a participatory development practitioner abroad and in the United States and with groups to confront social injustice. The Brazilian educator-philosopher Paulo Freire, her mentor during her doctoral fieldwork in Guatemala, has largely influenced her work.

Campos' work promotes the idea of marginalized groups as active “question makers” as opposed to being passive “question answerers.” This concept is elaborated in a handbook she coauthored for the United Nations, Who Are the Question-Makers? A Handbook for Participatory Evaluation. She is credited with influencing evaluation strategies for several nongovernmental organizations and many major donor agencies.