Making Sense of Marriage: Gender and the Transition to Adulthood in Nairobi, Kenya
Key Social Norms Take-aways: While the article does not explicitly address or measure social norms, it offers valuable insights into shared beliefs and expectations about marriage and adulthood among youth in Nairobi. The study highlights how marriage is broadly understood as a marker of adulthood, but with differing meanings and desirability across genders. Young men […]
Male and female conceptualizations of sexual harassment in Tanzania: The role of consent, male power
Key Social Norms Take-aways: This study highlights how social norms in Tanzania shape understandings of sexual harassment, particularly through entrenched gender roles and power dynamics. Norms around male entitlement to women’s bodies, hierarchical power in schools and workplaces, and expectations that women must publicly reject advances for them to be labeled as harassment all contribute […]
It’s a woman’s thing: Gender roles sustaining the practice of female genital mutilation among the Kassena-Nankana of northern Ghana
Key Social Norms Take-aways: This study highlights that the practice of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) in northern Ghana is largely sustained by women themselves through social roles, peer pressure, and cultural expectations. While patriarchy provides the broader context, women—particularly mothers, co-wives, and female elders—enforce FGM/C as a condition for respect, marriageability, and community acceptance. Efforts […]
Learners’ perspectives on the provision of condoms in South African public schools
Key Social Norms Take-aways: Although South African learners have a legal right to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services, social norms—such as stigma, adult judgment, and peer pressure—undermine their ability to access them. Gendered expectations particularly disadvantage girls, who are judged more harshly for seeking condoms or related services. Changing these norms requires respectful, youth-centered […]
Is transactional sex exploitative? A social norms perspective, with implications for interventions with adolescent girls and young women in Tanzania
Key Social Norms Take-aways: Transactional sex is shaped by deeply rooted social and gender norms in Tanzanian communities. Core norms include male provision in relationships, reciprocal expectations of sex from girls, and peer-driven pressure to achieve a “modern lifestyle” through material possessions. Relationships are often not viewed as exploitative unless there is coercion, power imbalance, […]
Interpersonal Communication as an Agent of Normative Influence: A Mixed Method Study among the Urban Poor in India
Key Social Norms Take-aways: This study shows that interpersonal communication plays a critical role in how social norms influence contraceptive use among married women in urban poor areas of Uttar Pradesh, India. Using the theory of normative social behavior, it finds that descriptive norms (what people perceive others are doing) and injunctive norms (perceptions of […]
Intersecting inequalities, gender and adolescent health in Ethiopia
Key Social Norms Take-aways: This study shows that gender norms significantly influence adolescents’ health in Ethiopia, but these norms do not operate in isolation. Instead, they intersect with factors like age, disability, poverty, and rural location to compound disadvantage. For example, stigma around menstruation and contraception, particularly for girls and adolescents with disabilities, limits access […]
Influences on seeking a contraceptive method among adolescent women in three cities in Nigeria
Key Social Norms Take-aways: The study reveals a disconnect between injunctive norms (what adolescents are expected to do) and descriptive norms (what they are actually doing). Social norms around age, marital status, and fertility strongly influence contraceptive decision-making. The research highlights that social networks—particularly peers and partners—play a crucial role in circumventing restrictive norms. Programs […]
Individual and community-level impact of infertility-related stigma in Malawi
Key Social Norms Take-aways: Infertility-related stigma in Malawi is deeply embedded in gendered social norms, shaping not only how infertility is understood but also how individuals are treated based on perceptions alone. Infertility, even if only suspected, disrupts normative pathways to adulthood, identity, and social status. Women are especially burdened by stigma, blamed for infertility […]
I really wanted to abort’ Desire for abortion, failed abortion and forced motherhood in South-Western Nigeria.
Key Social Norms Take-aways: The study reveals how entrenched social norms around premarital sex, motherhood, and abortion in South-Western Nigeria severely constrain young women’s reproductive autonomy. Abortion stigma—framed by religious, legal, and moral discourses—forces women to weigh social death against health risks when confronting unintended pregnancies. The concept of “forced motherhood” emerges from a complex […]