Scaling-up Norms-Focused Interventions for Adolescent and Youth Sexual and Reproductive Health: Current Practice and Reflections for Moving the Field Forward

Igras, Susan; Saldhana, Neela; Becker‐Benton, Antje; Dagadu, Nana Apenem; Pirzadeh, Martha

doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2019.01.002

Cited by 8 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…The authors nevertheless propose some values (e.g., inclusiveness, openness, responsiveness) and principles (e.g., respect, reciprocity) that should be followed to ensure ethical engagement with the social complexities of norm interventions. In particular, they highlighted the importance of sensitivity on the part of practitioners to the needs and priorities of a community, its history, and its ability to absorb change, as well as existing power structures and imbalances both between practitioners and target communities and within a community (Igras et al, 2019). The multiplicity of views, asymmetric power structures, and diversity of mechanisms underlying different behaviors and values can be engaged using what the authors refer to as "hybridity": a participatory process that embraces multiple value systems and perspectives and that creates substantive opportunities for engagement by all stakeholders in the development, design, implementation, and evaluation of interventions.…”

Section: Ethical Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scaling Up Change: A Critical Review and Practical Guide to Harnessing Social Norms for Climate Action

Constantino

Sparkman

Kraft‐Todd

et al. 2022

Psychol Sci Public Interest

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Anthropogenic carbon emissions have the potential to trigger changes in climate and ecosystems that would be catastrophic for the well-being of humans and other species. Widespread shifts in production and consumption patterns are urgently needed to address climate change. Although transnational agreements and national policy are necessary for a transition to a fully decarbonized global economy, fluctuating political priorities and lobbying by vested interests have slowed these efforts. Against this backdrop, bottom-up pressure from social movements and shifting social norms may offer a complementary path to a more sustainable economy. Furthermore, norm change may be an important component of decarbonization policies by accelerating or strengthening the impacts of other demand-side measures. Individual actions and policy support are social processes—they are intimately linked to expectations about the actions and beliefs of others. Although prevailing social norms often reinforce the status quo and unsustainable development pathways, social dynamics can also create widespread and rapid shifts in cultural values and practices, including increasing pressure on politicians to enact ambitious policy. We synthesize literature on social-norm influence, measurement, and change from the perspectives of psychology, anthropology, sociology, and economics. We discuss the opportunities and challenges for the use of social-norm and social-tipping interventions to promote climate action. Social-norm interventions aimed at addressing climate change or other social dilemmas are promising but no panacea. They require in-depth contextual knowledge, ethical consideration, and situation-specific tailoring and testing to understand whether they can be effectively implemented at scale. Our review aims to provide practitioners with insights and tools to reflect on the promises and pitfalls of such interventions in diverse contexts.

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Section: Ethical Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scaling Up Change: A Critical Review and Practical Guide to Harnessing Social Norms for Climate Action

Constantino

Sparkman

Kraft‐Todd

et al. 2022

Psychol Sci Public Interest

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“…Igras et al. (2019: S10) declare that norms‐focused interventions are ‘more effective than purely individual‐focused programming in sustaining behavioural outcomes’ on the grounds that ‘a norms‐focused intervention would go further and more in‐depth, for example, working with respected opinion leaders and influential reference groups to generate the social support needed for household behavior change’, and that such interventions ‘challenge power structures’ (ibid.). Unfortunately, the researchers fail to provide an example of a so‐called individual‐focused programme, and they misleadingly cite the example of PRACHARas a successful norms‐focused intervention.…”

Section: Sna‐2: Internal Critique and Extensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Norm Change, Behavioural Approaches and the Politics of Knowledge: A Conversation between the Ivory Tower and the Field

Wazir¹

2022

Development and Change

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The social norms approach (SNA), the new entrant from the behavioural sciences into the field of development practice, professes a scientific, more accurate, efficient and cost-effective methodology for identifying, measuring and changing harmful social norms. Despite its increasing popularity, no systematic, robust or long-term field evaluations are available to demonstrate the effectiveness and sustainability of using the SNA, nor its superiority over other, pre-existing methods. This article critiques the SNA from the perspective of development praxis, highlighting three concerns: the underlying cultural presumptions about development and its subjects; the problematic methodological design and its complexity; and the lack of contextual framing in the approach and its focus on individual behaviour to the exclusion of the structural constraints embedded in the social and economic environment. The recent drift to broaden the SNA framework is also discussed and assessed. To illustrate a contrasting approach, a case study is presented of MV Foundation, a civil society organization that works on changing social norms on issues of education and child labour. The article concludes that the SNA is arguably yet another instance of colonization of the field of development through hegemonic control of the creation of knowledge.I am grateful to Shantha Sinha, Linda van der Wijk and the anonymous reviewers of the journal for their careful reading and extensive comments on the text.

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“…The social norms interventions discussed in the contributions to this special issue, however, have little in common with those approaches. In a review of the scale-up of 13 social norms interventions targeting AYSRH [21] and a related commentary [22] , the authors identify five practices that have been used successfully in the scale-up of these interventions. All the interventions, however, were multicomponent programs combining elements having little to do directly with social norms, such as family life education and the creation of safe spaces for youth, with activities focused on other groups such as parents and teachers as well as components such as mass media campaigns that were intended for the community as a whole.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But clearly that discussion is far from over. As one commentary [22] aptly put it, this field of study and endeavor is in its own adolescence. More empirical work, more theorizing, and perhaps most importantly more discussion are needed to bring this field to a state of maturity in which its fullest potential contribution to AYSRH may be realized.…”

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confidence: 99%

Veering From a Narrow Path: The Second Decade of Social Norms Research

Bingenheimer

2019

Journal of Adolescent Health

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Adolescents and young adults, particularly young women in low-and middle-income countries, face numerous and welldocumented threats to their sexual and reproductive health, including adolescent pregnancy and childbearing, much of it unintended; complications from unsafe abortions; HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections; and child marriage [1e3]. Conflict of interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Disclaimer: The publication of this article was made possible by the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The opinions or views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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Scaling-up Norms-Focused Interventions for Adolescent and Youth Sexual and Reproductive Health: Current Practice and Reflections for Moving the Field Forward

Cited by 8 publications

References 1 publication

Scaling Up Change: A Critical Review and Practical Guide to Harnessing Social Norms for Climate Action

Scaling Up Change: A Critical Review and Practical Guide to Harnessing Social Norms for Climate Action

Social Norm Change, Behavioural Approaches and the Politics of Knowledge: A Conversation between the Ivory Tower and the Field

Veering From a Narrow Path: The Second Decade of Social Norms Research

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