Thinking about Social Change and Resistance

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Thinking about Social Change and Resistance

• Sue Dyson

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Objectives

• To examine some approaches to power and social
  change
• To explore issues concerning resistance to change
• To explore how individuals and organisations can
  be supported through the change process

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Questions

• What are the desired outcomes of your change
  interventions?
• Where do you focus your efforts?
• How will you know you have been successful?

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Models of power

• Power-over
• Hierarchical Power is possessed, flows from
  above to below from a centralised source, and is
  primarily repressive
• Those who possess power oppress those who do not
  have it
• Based on universal truths (men strong/women
  weak

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Power-To

• Power-to
• Neither positive or negative, but circulates in
  networks
• Oppressive power is still possible, but
  individuals are not passive
• Where there is power there will be resistance.

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Social Change

• Primary prevention of violence against women
• Many models of change/violence prevention
• Shared common principles

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US Violence Prevention Programs

• Aimed at men on college (university) campuses and
  prompted by three insights
• prevention efforts must address men because
  largely it is men who perpetrate this violence
• constructions of masculinity play a crucial role
  in shaping sexual assault and domestic violence
  and
• men have a positive role to play in helping to
  stop violence against women.

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Social Psychology

• Concerned with the study of mental processes and
  structures which mediate the dialectical
  relationship between stimuli and behaviour.

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Behaviour Change Theories

• Elaboration Likelihood Model
• Lasting change occurs when participants are
  motivated to hear a message, able to understand
  it and perceive the message is relevant to them
• Comparison between passive, interactive and no
  interventions found that interactive were the
  most effective but not sustained.
• Intervention a video.

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Social Ecological Model

• The issue of violence against women is one of
  culture and environment, rather than one of
  psychological or biological deficits in
  individuals.
• Used in schools to develop alternatives to
  traditional models of masculinity
• Capacity building, group empowerment, community
  building and culture change interdependent.

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Social Norms Approach

• The majority culture may support an individuals
  beliefs and behaviours.
• Social marketing a tool for change.
• Aim to shift mens perception of social norms by
  revealing the extent to which other men disagree
  or are uncomfortable with traditional attitudes
  towards women.
• Men consistently under-estimate the importance
  other men and women place on consent in sexual
  activity and the willingness of most men to
  intervene against sexual violence.

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The Community of Responsibility Model

• Based on the premise that everyone in a community
  has a role to play in ending violence against
  women.
• Aims to teach individuals how to intervene safely
  and effectively in incidents of sexual violence
  before, during and after they have occurred with
  strangers, acquaintances or friends.
• Bystander interventions and helping behaviour
  based on this model

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Stages of Change Model

• Suggests that behaviour change is a process, and
  that at any given time individuals are at
  different levels of readiness for change.
• Different people at different points in the
  process of change can benefit from different
  interventions.
• Five stages of change suggested

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Five stages of change

• Pre-contemplation individuals aware of the issue
  but need information
• Contemplation individuals need help to move
  awareness to action
• Decision/determination people ready to act but
  need a plan
• Action people who are already taking action need
  positive feedback and social support
• Maintenance ongoing reinforcement necessary to
  maintain behaviour change.

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Common Principles

• Violence against women is a social issue
• Must be addressed at all levels of society
• Interventions with men are an important adjunct
  to wider social change strategies
• Men should be approached as bystanders or
  witnesses to violence, not as potential
  perpetrators
• Programs must address readiness for change

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Readiness for change

• Readiness for change may sit anywhere between
  passive indifference and active intervention
• Strategies
• Identify norms and values
• Develop skills for example how to intervene
• Define the difference between consent and
  coercion
• Participants must be able to understand messages
  and be motivated to participate.

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Different approaches

• For those who have little recognition of issues
  concerning sexual assault empathy induction
• For those interested in behaviour change
  bystander interventions
• To foster peer relations bystander intervention
  and social norms approach

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Minimising defensiveness

• Many men feel blamed for male violence
• Some programs have found that defensiveness is
  diminished by approaching men as partners in
  violence prevention
• Leadership role in ending sexism and promoting a
  healthy sexual environment emphasised

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BUT resistance may be a good sign

• Any work that challenges the status quo and
  brings unspoken issues into the open is likely to
  increase attempts to resist changes.

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Minimising defensiveness

• Create safe, non-judgemental environment
• Use male facilitators
• Use inclusive pronouns (we, us)
• Hear mens perception of being blamed or
  denigrated
• Acknowledge that men can also be victims of
  violence
• Assert that most violence experienced by men is
  from other men.

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Effective prevention programs.

• Comprehensive address and involve all relevant
  community members and systems
• Intensive offering learning opportunities that
  are interactive, participatory, sustained over
  time and have multiple points of contact with
  reinforcing messages.

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Five features (cont)

• Address cognitive (thinking), affective (feeling)
  and behavioural domains. ie. what people know,
  how they feel and how they behave.
• Relevant to the audience
• Tailored to needs and readiness
• Acknowledge special concerns
• Focus on peer related variables
• Use peers in leadership roles
• Emphasise the relationship between sexual assault
  and other issues.

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Five features (cont)

• Positive messages build on mens values and
  assumed predisposition to act in a positive
  manner (i.e. the bystander approach)

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Positive and lasting change

• Intensive and lengthy education programs produce
  positive and lasting change in mens attitudes.
• Semester-long university course designed to train
  peer facilitators to conduct rape education
  compared to students in a human sexuality course.
  
• Rape education program resulted in positive
  attitude change, and two years later the
  participants were still less accepting of rape
  myths than those in the human sexuality course
  (Lonsway et al. 1998).