Girls need to behave like girls you know: the complexities of applying a gender justice goal within sexuality education in South African schools
Key Social Norms Take-aways: Social norms around femininity, masculinity, and sexuality continue to shape classroom practices in ways that reproduce inequality. Teachers often reflect patriarchal and heteronormative attitudes, burdening girls and reinforcing male privilege. Transformative sexuality education must challenge these norms through inclusive messaging and critical pedagogy. Objectives: This study critically examined how South Africa’s […]
Gendered childcare norms – evidence from rural Swaziland to inform innovative structural HIV prevention approaches for young women.
Key Social Norms Take-aways: Entrenched expectations that women, especially young women, will shoulder childcare responsibilities without support reinforce economic vulnerability and risky sexual dynamics. Structural interventions that challenge the gendered division of labor, reduce economic dependency, and shift norms around caregiving are crucial to preventing HIV among young women in Swaziland and similar settings. Objectives: […]
Gender norms and family planning amongst pastoralists in Kenya: a qualitative study in Wajir and Mandera
Key Social Norms Take-aways: This study highlights strong and intersecting social and gender norms that shape family planning (FP) behaviors among nomadic and semi-nomadic pastoralist communities in North Eastern Kenya. Norms that encourage large families are both descriptive (what is commonly done) and injunctive (what is socially approved), deeply tied to religion, fate, and community […]
Exploring young women’s menstruation-related challenges in Uttar Pradesh, India, using the socio-ecological framework
Key Social Norms Take-aways: This study highlights how entrenched social norms — including menstrual stigma, silence, and restrictive gender expectations — profoundly shape girls’ experiences and limit their access to support and services. Effective interventions must address these social norms directly by engaging not just girls but also families, communities, schools, and boys and men, […]
Feasibility of an HIV self-testing intervention: a formative qualitative study among individuals, community leaders, and HIV testing experts in northern Tanzania
Key Social Norms Take-aways: Supportive social norms—including beliefs that peers and family members would approve of HIV self-testing (HIVST)—may help drive uptake among high-risk populations in Tanzania. However, social norms were not central in participants’ discussions, suggesting that personal agency and privacy may be more decisive factors in self-testing behavior. Still, leveraging influential community leaders […]
Exploring social norms around reproductive health affecting unmarried adolescent girls and young women in Burundi
Key Social Norms Take-aways: This study illustrates how deeply entrenched gender norms in Burundi shape adolescent sexual and reproductive health outcomes. Eight social norms emerged as having the greatest influence: sexuality and reproductive health are not discussed openly in households or the community, and it is not considered socially acceptable to do so; it is […]
Exploring stigma and social norms in women’s abortion experiences and their expectations of care
Key Social Norms Take-aways: Abortion stigma is deeply intertwined with social norms around female sexuality, marriage, and motherhood. In both Kenya and India, community disapproval and cultural taboos contribute to secrecy, fear, and delayed care-seeking. Interventions must address these norms by promoting respectful, youth-friendly, and rights-based services. Ensuring privacy, providing accurate information, and challenging harmful […]
EXPLORING THE ROLE OF EVOLVING GENDER NORMS IN SHAPING ADOLESCENTS’ EXPERIENCES OF VIOLENCE IN PASTORALIST AFAR, ETHIOPIA
Key Social Norms Take-aways: In Afar, Ethiopia, entrenched gender and age-based social norms deeply shape adolescents’ experiences of violence. Despite modest generational shifts—especially near urban areas—norms around child marriage (particularly absuma or cousin marriage), FGM/C, and girls’ limited mobility and agency continue to normalize violence and restrict girls’ choices. Addressing these norms requires more than […]
Exploring the socio-ecological levels for prevention of sexual risk behaviours of the youth in uMgungundlovu District Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal
Key Social Norms Take-aways: Social norms that endorse male dominance, multiple partnerships, and early sexual activity significantly shape youth sexual behaviours in uMgungundlovu, KwaZulu-Natal. These norms, entrenched across family, community, and institutional levels, particularly disadvantage girls, fostering gender inequality, intimate partner violence, and limited sexual agency. The findings stress that interventions must address not just […]
Exploring perceptions of gender roles amongst sexually active adolescents in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Key Social Norms Take-aways: The study highlights that adolescent SRH vulnerabilities are deeply embedded in gendered social norms that dictate how young people see themselves and their roles. Effective interventions need to actively question and reshape these norms, engaging not only adolescents but also families and communities, to create supportive environments where young people can […]