Global community of professionals working in Communication for Development
Mass media has long been recognised as a way to prompt large-scale behaviour change. But can it change the norms and beliefs which perpetuate child marriage?
This brief takes a look at what entertainment-education is and its potential for addressing a complex social issue such as child marriage. It also contains a list of useful resources on the issue.
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According to the World Bank’s 2015 Development Report, edutainment has the potential to achieve large-scale behaviour change, and many other studies have noted similarly positive results. However, rigorously-gathered evidence of edutainment’s impact on behaviour change is still lacking. Oxfam has implemented edutainment programmes in 14 countries and is constantly seeking to better understand its impact. In 2015, Oxfam Novib’s impact measurement unit conducted a rigorous (randomised) evaluation of an edutainment pilot project in Tunisia.
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In the last few years, scholars and practitioners working in low- and mid-income countries (LMIC) have increasingly been trying to harness the influence of social norms to improve people’s health globally. However, the literature informing social norm interventions in LMIC lacks a framework to understand how norms interact with other factors that sustain harmful practices and behaviours. This gap has led to short-sighted interventions that target social norms exclusively without a wider awareness of how other institutional, material, individual and social factors affect the harmful practice. Emphasizing norms to the exclusion of other factors might ultimately discredit norms-based strategies, not because they are flawed but because they alone are not sufficient to shift behaviour. In this paper, the authors share a framework (already adopted by some practitioners) that locates norm-based strategies within the wider array of factors that must be considered when designing prevention programmes in LMIC.
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“Enough” – a worldwide Oxfam campaign -aims to replace harmful social norms with positive ones that promote gender equality and non-violence. To better understand which social norms perpetuate traditional practices in Nigeria and how they influence behaviour, Oxfam in Nigeria conducted formative research by interviewing 20 men and 20 women and analysing the results in a campaign design workshop with partner organizations and experts working on violence against women and girls. The findings will inform the development of the Enough campaign in Nigeria.
From the research and subsequent analysis in the workshop, four social norms were identified as drivers of the harmful traditional practices FGM/C and early marriage: A respectable woman marries early; A respectable woman is submissive to male authority; A suitable woman is not promiscuous; A woman is worth more as a wife than as a daughter. Women and girls who transgress these norms face four main kinds of sanction: peer pressure, condemnation, exclusion and force. Encouragingly, although the research found that respondents believe others still think it is appropriate to follow traditional practices, many of the respondents’ own individual attitudes have already shifted – a first signifier of social norms change.
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This article provides a framework to identify the resources, institutions, and processes that shape adolescents’ gendered choices and behaviors. This understanding can be used to inform decisions about when and where to intervene with program and policy levers.
The article results from a qualitative, longitudinal study conducted in tandem with the Gender Roles Equality and Transformation (GREAT) Project implemented by the Institute for Reproductive Health, Pathfinder International and Save the Children, together with local partners Straight Talk and Concerned Parent Association, with funding from USAID.
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