Process and impact evaluation of a community gender equality intervention with young men in Rajasthan, India

Abstract

This paper reports on the results of a process and impact evaluation to assess the effects of a project aiming to engage men in changing gender stereotypes and improving health outcomes for women in villages in Rajasthan, India. We conducted seven focus group discussions with participants in the programme and six in-depth interviews with intervention group leaders. We also conducted 137 pre- and 70 post-intervention surveys to assess participant and community knowledge, attitudes and behaviours surrounding gender, violence and sexuality. We used thematic analysis to identify process and impact themes, and hierarchical mixed linear regression for the primary outcome analysis of survey responses. Post-intervention, significant changes in knowledge and attitudes regarding gender, sexuality and violence were made on the individual level by participants, as well as in the community. Moderate behavioural changes were seen in individuals and in the community. Study findings offer a strong model for prevention programmes working with young men to create a community effect in encouraging gender equality in social norms.

Gendered stereotypes and norms: A systematic review of interventions designed to shift attitudes and behaviour

“…Very few included studies collected follow-up data, with only one third of studies evaluating beyond immediate post-intervention data collection (n ¼ 24). Of those that did, ten reported maintenance of their findings [55,56,64,70,79,93,95,103,113,116], eleven did not provide sufficient detail to determine [50,52,57,65,66,82,91,92,94,102,105] and two reported findings were not maintained [61,90]. The last study, a 90 min single session experiment with an education component, reported significant positive outcomes between base and end line scores, but saw a significant negative rebound in scores to worse than base line when they collected follow up data six weeks later [63].…”

“…That is not to say that male participants do not respond well to education-based interventions with 13 of the 18 studies engaging male only cohorts reporting intended outcomes using direct participant education. However, of these studies, nine also utilised one or more of the additional strategies identified such as co-design or peer engagement which whilst different to community engagement, employ similar principles around participant engagement [77,79,87,91,92,96,97,99,105,107,111,115]. These findings suggest that participant sex may impact on how well participants engage with an intervention type and thus how successful it is.…”

“…Interventions that incorporate community mobilisation engage with more than just the individual, often addressing community norms and creating environments supportive of change [49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,117,118]. Similarly, education based programs that incorporate co-design and peer support do more than just knowledge and awareness raising with an individual participant, providing space for them to develop their competence and social networks [70,75,77,79,81,86,90,91,92,93,97,103,107,109,110,111,113,115,116]. When it comes to designing these interventions, it would appear that success may be influenced by which method is most engaging to the participants and that this is in turn influenced by the participants' sex.…”

“…Further to this common theory of change, several strategies were identified which appear to have enhanced the delivery and impact of these interventions. These included the use of participant peers to lead, support and heighten learning [49,77,79,81,86,90,92,93,103,109,110,111,113,115,116,117], involvement of multiple levels of the ecological framework (not just addressing the individual) [51,52,53,54,55,56,58,59,60,70,72,74,81,86,91,97,98,102,117,118], developing participants into agents of change [49,52,58,60,72,81,98,117,118], using modelling and role models [49,51,…”

Improved child marriage laws and its association with changing attitudes and experiences of intimate partner violence: a comparative multi-national study

“…In addition, child marriage laws are often followed by national campaigns that aim to change social norms and create a protective environment for girls and their communities [28]. These initiatives often include targeted mass media campaigns and community-wide education and outreach interventions, which have a positive effect on gender norms and attitudes towards violence against women [29][30][31][32][33]. Past literature has observed a positive impact of community-based interventions on IPV and IPV normative outcomes among both women and men [8,29,[32][33][34].…”