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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Social Norms, Social Change I by University of Pennsylvania

4.6
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2,000 ratings

About the Course

This is a course on social norms, the rules that glue societies together. It teaches how to diagnose social norms, and how to distinguish them from other social constructs, like customs or conventions. These distinctions are crucial for effective policy interventions aimed to create new, beneficial norms or eliminate harmful ones. The course teaches how to measure social norms and the expectations that support them, and how to decide whether they cause specific behaviors. The course is a joint Penn-UNICEF project, and it includes many examples of norms that sustain behaviors like child marriage, gender violence and sanitation practices. This is Part 1 of the Social Norms, Social Change series. In these lectures, I introduce all the basic concepts and definitions, such as social expectations and conditional preferences, that help us distinguish between different types of social practices like customs, descriptive norms and social norms. Expectations and preferences can be measured, and these lectures explain how to measure them. Measurement is crucial to understanding the nature of the practice you are facing, as well as whether an intervention was or was not successful, and why. In Part 2, we will put into practice all we have learned in Part 1. New! Please use this link for a 30% discount on the recommended book that accompanies this course! https://global.oup.com/academic/product/9780190622053/?cc=us&lang=en&promocode=AAFLYG6...

Top reviews

EG

Feb 21, 2022

This course opened my mind as to understand what moves people to do and/or think the way they do -and how to measure it- in order to be able to correctly intervene for social change. Simply amazing.

PE

Mar 5, 2019

This course will open your eyes to different behavioural patterns that human engage in, teach how about the suppossed mudane but important things in our society and also how to carry out a research.

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401 - 425 of 506 Reviews for Social Norms, Social Change I

By Aishwarya K

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Dec 8, 2020

An extremely well explained and informative course which gives you a glimpse of the social scenario in backward communities. I hope that more examples and social issues are included in future from parts other than Africa and where problems other than open defecation, child marriage and female cutting exist.

By Constanza S

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Apr 14, 2020

The course is great, very clear and easy to understand.

It have some spontaneous questions for checking if you understand and also quiz.

The only thing i would make the quiz with others examples so that no matter the memmory, it testes if people can actually recognize this in new examples of situations.

By Rahul K

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Apr 1, 2019

I must say that, It is a really well structured and detailed program. It helps me to understand the nuances of the society in regard of the situation and practices that occurs due to the social norms. I would highly recommend this course to all people who wants to work on the ground with people.

By Tasha A

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Dec 11, 2020

The course may seem heavy, and if you have left academia for quite a period of time, the materials may feel taxing. I had to take my time in consuming and processing all the files and references, but I am not a step closer to understanding the importance and consequences of social norms.

By Youra A

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Oct 5, 2019

I enjoyed taking the course very much. It was very helpful understanding the social norms. However, some of the concepts that were introduced in the course were very confusing. I had a hard time understanding it and I think I still need to spend lots of time reviewing the materials.

By Jacqui H

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Sep 10, 2017

Excellent introduction to the concepts and applications of Bicchieri's social norms theory. I also appreciated very much the grounding in practical examples, and the combination of graded questions and practical questions for us to consider how to apply the theory in our own lives.

By Morgan S

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Jul 28, 2017

I found a lot of the information repetitive, so there were times where I felt like it was redundant and disliked hearing the same information repeated multiple times. However, the information I learned was useful and helpful. I just think the course could have been more concise.

By Chikaodili T A

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Sep 24, 2020

The course is very enriching. It has helped me to understand why people behave in certain ways. The tutor took time to explain the course content in a way that most of the people will understand. I recommend the course to every one working in a development organisation.

By Ricardo H S d S C

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Sep 8, 2016

It was a great course. In the first to weeks the concepts were not so clear, but after this, the lessons became more clear and everything fit. It gave me really good insights. I look forward for social norms, social change II. Hope it come soon.

By CH.SANDEEP M

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Dec 29, 2016

This is one of the most interesting and interacting course, makes you not to move from your chair. The course prepares the participants to understand the simpler issues in a broader way and serious issues in a simple and straightforward way.

By Berta F

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Oct 9, 2020

Sometimes info from videos got too repetitive with the info in the readings. Apart from that, I enjoyed the topics and the discussions as well as the different examples and tools given by the teacher and those invited by UNICEF.

By Franklin H

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Aug 3, 2019

The course was engaging, interesting and informative. I learnt a lot of new things but the information was not too high above my normal level of knowledge and I did not need too much extra reading to understand the content.

By Desiree B

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Oct 1, 2017

Overall a great course. The lectures where clear and there was a good ballance in reading and listening material. In the future I would like to see a wider diversity of examples used instead of mainly child marriage and OD.

By Anna K

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Apr 2, 2020

Good and understandable introduction to the theory of social norms. Examples used are illustrative and helpful. Sometimes, the readings and lectures were repetitive rather than complementary.

By Nik N A S N M

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Jul 1, 2020

Solid concepts to dissect collective behaviours and unpack the phenomenons. Helpful examples by UNICEF. Would be better if slides are also included, but overall, great! Thank you, Prof :)

By Maryann F

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Apr 28, 2020

Helpful framework for determining how to shift social norms. The detail in which the instructor teases out the nuanced ways to assess why individuals act the way they do is very helpful

By Mai M

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Jul 5, 2017

It's useful , it help me to know more about spreading of any norm,custom ,etc and help me to know ways of distinguish it and helping people to differentiate between good and bad one .

By Ricardo R I

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Oct 9, 2016

It's very useful. I think at first lectures there is neccesary a synopsis about the concepts and their classification or relation, because as you deep the relation is more confused.

By Sezin I

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Jan 9, 2017

I enroll the course just for listening videos and following the readings,

I really enjoyed it, and learned it, it gives another perspective to see the whole community

thanks a lot

By NEHA P

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Apr 28, 2020

Good insights about social problems and how various organisations working hard to change mindset of people living in rural areas. Learned new concepts about norms. Good Work!

By isabella u

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Oct 2, 2022

The lecturer is knowledgeable and easy to understand, the examples used are so relatable. The videos and notes are detailed and easy to use. This has been so great.

By Mahesh J

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Nov 8, 2016

It was a good course even though it was a bit theoretical. Its a great start for someone who has no background in social norms. I am glad I took this course though

By Natasha

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Feb 6, 2017

The course is very detailed, with a strong methology and useful examples. Nevertheless, it wasn't always simple to follow and the last week was very demanding.

By Armand B

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Jul 17, 2019

This is a nice course if you want to chose social science field. In terms of Research, you are be able to how to formulates questions based on this course.

By Amelie D

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Jul 1, 2021

The course was easy to follow, and the concepts were well explained. The combination of videos and learning material was a big help.I learned a lot.