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Values Deliberations and Norm Adoption Maasai Woman Examines Declaration of Equal Rights for Women and Children, Issued by Justice Elders (standing in background) of Ol Pusi Moru, Kenya, 5/2012. Dynamics of Social Norm Change. How are some norms harder to change than others?
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Values Deliberations and Norm AdoptionMaasai Woman Examines Declaration of Equal Rights for Women and Children, Issued by Justice Elders (standing in background) of Ol Pusi Moru, Kenya, 5/2012
Dynamics of Social Norm Change • How are some norms harder to change than others? • Who is the reference network? • Who is the core group? • What are more effective ways to do values deliberations and organized diffusion? • What is coordinated abandonment?
Strength of Interdependence and Speed of Shift • Social convention of Driving on Left vs. Driving on Right • An extreme example • Almost everyone must know that almost everyone is changing • And they must know the exact point in time the change takes place • Contrast: a new social norm of individuals’ conservation of municipal water supply • One will reduce if one sees that enough other people are reducing • It’s enough that one sees every day in the weather report that city water consumption steadily goes down
How Strong is a Social Norm? Two Dimensions of Interdependence • Bad Consequences of Doing New Behavior on One’s Own: Strong to Weak • Early marriage – daughter marries poorly or not at all, risk of dishonor • Community sanitation – wasted effort, ridicule • Washing hands with soap – teasing • How Many Must be Organized to Adopt an Effective New Norm: Many to Few • Almost everyone – community sanitation • Most people – condom usage • Enough unmarried girls – going to school together that their honor is secure • Family, friends, neighbors – exclusive breastfeeding
Who is the Reference Network?It differs, even for the same practice • Urban-coastal China footbinding and FGM/C in Senegal • Overlapping marriage horizons • Old and newly created networks • Contagion of abandonment • Deir al Barsha, Egypt • Religious and geographical isolate • Eased pioneer abandonment, but prevented easy contagion
Who is the Reference Network? • USAID Guinea urban study, descriptive survey, FGC reference network • Lower income: ethnically homogeneous neighborhood; for more important decisions respondent is oriented to rural community of origin and its notables; less exposed to communications media • Higher income: mixed neighborhoods away from extended family, for important decisions are more oriented to friends, coworkers, media figures, house of worship; much more exposed to media messages
For a Social Norm, Treat the Reference Network, not the Population at Risk • Individual Problem • Which individuals are at risk from high blood pressure? • Concentrate effort on those individuals • Social Problem • Which individuals and which of their beliefs cause the pattern of behavior? • Example: Social norm of child marriage • Population at risk: adolescent girls • Population whose beliefs (expectations, evaluations) cause existence of the social norm: parents, grandparents, bridegroom’s families, caste, village • Adolescent girls could be highly motivated agents of change, • But, they are not enough for change, program must also engage all those who cause the social norm
Dynamics of Norm Adoption • Core Group • Values Deliberations • Organized Diffusion • Enough People Ready to Change • Coordinated Abandonment
Who is the Core Group?It can take different forms • Differs by Circumstances, By Program History, by Chance Opportunity • Prefer More Influential, More Innovative Individuals, with ties to all Sectors of the Reference Network • Chosen by village leaders – but largely self-selected (Tostan) • All of the school teachers; later, male and female elders, multiple other groups (Fulda Mosocho, Kenya) • Town council – not acting in its police capacity (Deir al Barsha, Egypt) • The elders’ council – not acting in its police capacity (a Maasai group, Kenya) • Core groups with people from all sectors, including village, clan, religious leaders, educators (KMG, Ethiopia) • Founders of each marriage society (China) • Self-selected cadre (Otpor!) • College student clubs (U.S. civil rights)
Dynamics of Norm Adoption • Core Group • Values Deliberations • Organized Diffusion • Enough People Ready to Change • Coordinated Abandonment
Values Deliberations(Transformative Human Rights Education) • Study of more effective and less effective FGM/C programs in five countries (Mackie 2009, UNICEF 2010) • Programs that apparently were more effective had two central features • Community deliberations about local values and national or international human rights • Coordinated abandonment of FGM/C and other harmful practices
Values DeliberationsStarting in Core Group, and it Takes Time • These deliberations take place in small core groups for 1 to 3 years, and diffuse from the core group through the population • The deliberations are about values, human rights, moral norms, social norms, factual beliefs, and community practices • Multiple positive changes result • (Not unique – found in other program areas, & in other regions)
Values DeliberationsThey can take different forms • Religious and human values of justice and peace (CEOSS, Egypt) • Values-centered education, equal rights of women and men (Fulda Mosocho, Kenya) • Gender equality, human rights (KMG, Ethiopia) • International human rights (Tostan, Senegal) • Rights in Kenyan constitution (Ol Pusi Moru Maasai, Kenya) • Rights in Indian constitution (IHRE, India) • Etc.
UNDP Community Capacity Enhancement – Community Conversations; on HIV/AIDSM. Gueye, D. Daouf, T. Chaava • Community Conversations = Core Group, Values Deliberations • “Multilevel resonance of CCs” = Organized Diffusion • CC resonates in one community and changes it • CC resonates from one community to the next, transferring change • CCE-CC not explicit about Coordinated Abandonment
Four Ethiopian CCE-Community Conversation Programs on Harmful Practices • CCE-CC was launched in Ethiopia in 2002 for HIV/AIDS; some programs also took up harmful social practices • Four of these programs were measured by UNICEF-organized quantitative and qualitative surveys • Two were effective: • Rohi Weddu: Afari nomads in scattered bands • KMG: Abandonment of FGM/C, marriage by abduction, and other harmful practices throughout province of 700,000, in about 5 years
KMG, Ethiopia • Core groups – values deliberations – organized diffusion – public celebration marking norms shift • Deliberations, diffusions, and public commitments saturate the population, upward, from local communities to Subdistricts, from Subdistricts to Districts, from Districts to Zonal “Whole Body, Healthy Life” Celebrations repeated annually • decisively shifting normative and empirical expectations throughout the communities • 85% of population participated in a core-group-inspired discussion on harmful practices
KMG Ethiopia: First Annual Whole Body Celebration, Zonal Level, 2004, ca. 80,000 (10% of total population)photo: kmgselfhelp.org
Effective Abandonment Requires Community Discussion, Decision, Commitment • Community – of reciprocal expectation • Not any community, e.g., not the country, the “population at risk,” government territorial unit, trade association • Genuine Community Discussion of pros and cons • Not central officials declaring top decisions to local officials, not one-sided campaign in subgroup, no foreordained conclusions • Genuine Community Decision • Not a top-down command, not merely a law from the capital • Greater part of community must be disposed to change • Genuine Community Commitment • Coordinated abandonment, mutual pledge • Monitoring mechanism
Less Effective Community Dialogue (due to limited program resources)Note: surveyed by UNICEF • Project A, Regional Govt • Involves 70 individuals in all community sectors from each of 17 Subdistricts, for 18 months • Small human rights element • Abandonment made at Subdistrict level • Subdistrict decision (including criminalization) conveyed downward to local communities (no local discussion, decision, commitment) • Project W, Zonal Govt • Trains for two days six community dialogue facilitators from each Subdistrict on health and harmful practices • No human rights element • Facilitators from Subdistrict sent to organize 1-2 day dialogues in several villages at a time • Abandonment decision (including criminalization) conveyed downward from Subdistrict to village
Institute for Human Rights Education (HRE), Middle-School, Indiareported by Monisha Bajaj, Columbia Teachers College • 18 states, 3500 schools, originated in Tamil Nadu • Class 6, HR as enunciated in Indian Constitution • Class 7, Children’s Rights and Experiences • Class 8, Right to Equal Treatment and Nondiscrimination • School style, not informal education style
A Credible Program with Remarkable Changes in Attitudes • Urged working youth to return to school • Convinced a family not to commit female infanticide • Tried to halt child marriage of classmates • Reported and threatened to report instances of child labor and child marriage • Diffused values deliberations to parents, siblings, neighbors, friends, and self-help groups • Boys washed own dishes • Boys refused extra food, advocated equal treatment of sisters • More student interaction across caste and religious lines • Played more with children of other castes • Confronted teachers late for class • Threatened to report staff abuses • Complained about substandard food • But, behavior change was unstable, because it…
Does Not Involve All Sectors of Community • “Given these impediments to intervention and without sufficient support from teachers or other adults who could provide strategies or back-up as higher status community members, students sometimes had a difficult time sustaining the activist impulse that their studies in human rights had inculcated in them.” • Turkey, Women for Women’s Human Rights • Empowering individual results • Resistance from nonparticipants
Dynamics of Norm Adoption • Core Group • Values Deliberations • Organized Diffusion • Enough People Ready to Change • Coordinated Abandonment
Coordinated AbandonmentIt can take different forms • “Public declaration” is only one implementation of the concept • Create new relationships among the like-minded • Urban China: join marriage society • India: non-dowry matrimonial websites • Egypt, Deir al Barsha: sign community commitment in private, personal commitment either kept private or made public • Sudan, Saleema: for mass-media, an animated portrayal of accelerating attitude change, gathering together in central assembly, all looking up to a full-colored flag (up to a higher ideal of completeness) • Local tradition of signing on a flag, etc. • Bogota water consumption • Publish total city water consumption daily as part of weather reports