Insight Gathering to Understand Social Norms

Did you take a peek at other sections, and realise you don’t have enough information? Time to gather some insights!

When we start talking about social norms, our information often comes from local field staff and other colleagues who are familiar with the social environment. However, just like anyone, they may not have the full picture and see things mainly from their own perspective – we are all members of a community too! For example, if there is a strong norm in a community that unmarried adolescents should not be using family planning methods, then perhaps your staff or providers might hold this view as well.

This guide provides some tips on other ways to get more information about the social norms in your context, by going directly to the community.

Insight gathering, or formative research, will also be a key first step in making sure you can monitor and evaluate social norms programming.

Phases for informing and measuring social norms programming

Phase			Why?	How?
You are here	Formative	Identify possible social norms, reference groups and sanctions	Desk review of existing literature and secondary data Informal discussions with your team Informal discussions key community informants (CRT) Qualitative discussions and interviews with community members
You are here		Baseline	Verify social norms, assess their strength and opportunities	Qualitative discussions and interviews with community members Quantitative surveys Analyse the norm
Monitoring			Capture indications of norm change, monitor backlash	Activity monitoring Observation
Endline			Demonstrate changes in social norms, correlate with changes in behaviour and attitudes	Qualitative discussions and interviews with community members Quantitative surveys

Note: You will not always need to complete each of these phases, or all activities, for all projects.

For example, for smaller projects or in contexts where we have already done a lot of formative research the formative and baseline phases can often be combined.
Similarly, not every project addressing social norms will need a complex evaluation.

See the section on monitoring & evaluation for more information on how (and when) to monitor and evaluate social norms interventions.

Key questions to ensure you have answered at the formative/ insight gathering phase:

What, if any, social norms are influencing the behaviours my intervention is targeting?
Who is most and least affected by the norm(s), and in what ways?
How do people in this context talk about the norm(s)?
Who are the most influential reference groups for the norm(s)?
What social sanctions are anticipated for deviating from the norm(s)?

How to answer these questions

Desk review of existing literature and secondary data

Don’t ignore any data or learnings that might exist that can help you understand social norms in your context. These might come from previous MSI projects and data sources, or from partners. Existing data might be qualitative (research studies, evaluations and project documents) or quantitative (see below).

Quantitative Secondary Data

Identify trends that might indicate social norms are influencing behaviour
- Look for differences in behaviours and attitudes by target group; might social norm(s) be one of the reasons for these differences?
Providing data supporting how widespread a norm is and the influence it is having on attitudes and behaviour
- If other insights suggest that a norm might be influencing behaviours think about other indicators that would help confirm to what extent this is the case.

Potential data sources

MSI data (service data, exit interviews etc.) can help you identify trends that could indicate social norms are influencing behaviours.

Secondary data might help you further understand the social norms you think you have identified.

Secondary data sources:

The World Values Survey contains considerable data from more than 80 countries on cultural values, attitudes, and beliefs about gender, family, poverty, education, health, and security.
Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) provide nationally representative data on demographics and social and health behaviours.
The International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES, carried out in more than 25 countries)
The World Health Organization’s Multi-Country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence against Women (conducted in 10 countries)

Informal discussions with your team

Use the activities in sections 3 and 4 with others in your team, including those who work directly in communities, to see how much you already know!

Qualitative Data

Qualitative discussions and interviews with community members

If you feel like you still have gaps in your understanding of the norm(s) you want to address, are tackling a norm for the first time, investing a lot in a social norms intervention, or will need to demonstrate to a donor the impact of your approach it may be worth investing in additional qualitative formative research and insight gathering.

Qualitative research is best done by a trained facilitator and depending on the topic and profile of community member you wish to speak to you may need to consider ethics review (to make sure your research won’t put anyone at unnecessary risk). Please reach out to your GSO support team to ensure you are on the right track!

However, please don’t let this put you off! Exploring issues directly with those being influenced by the social norms can be the best way to provide inspiration on how to address them in your programming and there are lots of great participatory techniques that can be used in qualitative research that can help you gain insight.

Speak to your RME team and/or the GSO Evidence and Impact team if you think you need this type of research, they can help you identify an approach in line with the time and resources you have available.

Examples of formative insight gathering for social norms projects:

Transform/PHARE Project (Benin, Burkina, Cote d’Ivoire, Niger) – aimed to increase demand for family planning. Includes survey questionnaires.
Garima Project (India) – aimed to improve menstrual health management. Includes lots of qualitative and quantitative tools used to gather insights.
Transforming Masculinities / Masculinité, Famille et Foi Project (DRC) – aimed to increase family planning use and gender equity. Includes all tools used to gather insights, including guides to interview faith leaders.
Girls Holistic Development tools (Senegal) – aimed to fight gender norms negatively affecting girls. Includes tools used to gather insights among girls as well as influencers, such as grandmothers.

Quantitative surveys

You are unlikely to need to collect extra quantitative data to inform your social norms programming. The only time you may need this, is if you have been asked to quantitatively demonstrate your programme’s impact on social norms at a population level. In this case you will need to measure the baseline situation before prior to implementing your programme. For more information on including social norms in quantitative surveys see Section 11.

Informal discussions

Informal discussions with your team

Use the activities in sections 3 and 4 with others in your team, including those who work directly in communities, to see how much you already know!

Informal discussions with key community informants

There are often people we work with regularly from the communities we visit who can provide excellent insight into these contexts. The Community Reconnaissance Tool (CRT) can help you capture these insights in a structured way. It’s best used with community leaders but can be used with other key informants who can speak confidently about their community.