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

4.6
stars
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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26 - 50 of 506 Reviews for Social Norms, Social Change I

By Craig C

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Jan 28, 2017

A fantastic course that covers a lot in a short period of time and has wonderful lectures that are easy to understand and follow in the time allocated. I love how you can go back and review lectures and quizzes. Thanks to the lecture for her time and all involved in the production including UNICEF and Penn State.

By Jonas N N

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Jun 21, 2019

This are a very complex theory in international development due to the variety of behaviour, culture, custom in the different societies around the world. in spite of globalisation, the world is still not one society. Therefore considering norms, behaviours and believes are very important. this what I gain here.

By Kirti S

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Jul 21, 2018

I found this course very informative and useful. The way the course is structured and delivered made it easy to understand the various terms and definitions. The examples given and regular recapping of terms with more examples and comparative examples made it so clear to understand. Thank you Prof. Bicchieri.

By Jasmine N

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Feb 4, 2020

Excellent course! It is more academic and rigorous than some other courses offered here. Learnt a lot about theories of social norms and look forward to taking the second course to apply my learnings to social change.

By Milecia M

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Oct 18, 2016

This class changed my view on the way I look at the world. I didn't realize how much was under the surface of how we interact with each other. This class broke down how we influence each other in the most subtle ways.

By Venkata R M

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Mar 25, 2019

This course is really very helpful to me in improving my academic weightage.It's really helpful to me in gaining the knowledge.It's like studying with the real world scenarios and understanding it in much better way.

By Carmen M M

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Jul 11, 2018

This is an excellent theoretical base for understanding social norms and the complex dimension to be considered in assessing impact on behavior. The lectures are well delivered and compel one toward further reading.

By Riaz A

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Dec 2, 2017

I am grateful to Cristina Bicchieri for her amazing lectures. I enjoyed the lectures and learnt a lot. All those who are interested in social change will surely find the course extremely relevant and useful.

By Brenda

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Jan 7, 2017

This is an extremely useful course. There is an effective blend of lecture, quizzes, case studies, essays, and student discussion. The content is highly relevant. I highly recommend this course.

By Sam G

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Nov 8, 2017

This course is both informative and practical! It manages to convey the complexity of social norm analysis and measurement while remaining accessible to students with no prior knowledge.

By Melissa J P

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May 4, 2017

I loved this course so much! It discussed important topics within Social Norms and Social Change at length, and really strengthened my understanding of each! Thank you so much!

By Sergio A A

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Jul 28, 2020

This course was important to me because offers really good categories to understand the behavior of people in a community. The explanation and the support material were great.

By Sabeen a

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Jul 5, 2020

excellent teacher and videos , helpful literature and easy to comprehend .. thank you .. if possible please provide online certificate for those who cant afford .. bless you.

By Rochelle V

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Mar 4, 2020

It is mind blowing to know that the norms we grew up with could be explained scientifically. It gives me a refreshing view on how we can strengthen or abandon social norms.

By Lisa k

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Jul 19, 2017

i really like this course as it showed the root of some social norms in the community that i live in and i was able to analyses people's motives for behaving in such way.

By Lourdes C

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Mar 14, 2020

Excellent course, fantastic Lecturer, lots of new learning and interesting pointers on social norms and beliefs. Very well taught and structured.

By Keith S

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Dec 10, 2017

I thought that the course was both practically relevant to international development work, and also well supported by theory - a nice combination.

By Mijannur R G

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Sep 2, 2019

Madam Cristina Bicchieri your teaching style is mindblowing. I really love your teaching and the course. Thanks for the online opportunity.

By sanjay r

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Oct 16, 2017

its an eye opener , please do this course for the pure value of it........i am a better person now, having subscribed to this course.

By George R

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Aug 10, 2020

It really helped to successfully redesign a research proposal on corporal punishment applied to children.

Thank you very much!

By SEHRISH S K

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Aug 31, 2019

one of the most helpful and comprehensive course I have taken online. material and relevant examples made it more inreresting.

By ISMAEIL M S

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Dec 9, 2018

Great course

Provides very important information about human behavior in all its forms

And how to measure behavior

it is fun

By Jessie H

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Jul 11, 2017

Although I had no foundation in sociology, this course gave me an overview of base concepts and examples. Thank you teacher!

By Hassan R

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Oct 8, 2016

Very informative and well tailored course. Plenty of real life examples, great lecturer and simple language. Thank you!

By Linda v d W

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May 18, 2020

Interesting course that provides tools for immediate use to development/international cooperation practitioners.