Promoting Gender Equality: A Systematic Review of Interventions

More than four decades have passed since the United Nation’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was adopted. Now is an opportune time to consider whether the interventions seeking to realise CEDAW’s aspirations have brought us closer to achieving gender equality. This systematic review aimed to identify and synthesise evidence for the effectiveness of social justice, cognitive, or behaviour-change interventions that sought to reduce gender inequality, gender bias, or discrimination against women or girls. Interventions could be implemented in any context, with any mode of delivery and duration, if they measured gender equity or discrimination outcomes, and were published in English in peer-reviewed journals. Papers on violence against women and sexuality were not eligible. Seventy-eight papers reporting qualitative (n?=?36), quantitative (n?=?23), and multi-methods (n?=?19) research projects met the eligibility criteria after screening 7,832 citations identified from psycINFO, ProQuest, Scopus searches, reference lists and expert recommendations. Findings were synthesised narratively. Improved gender inclusion was the most frequently reported change (n?=?39), particularly for education and media interventions. Fifty percent of interventions measuring social change in gender equality did not achieve beneficial effects. Most gender mainstreaming interventions had only partial beneficial effects on outcomes, calling into question their efficacy in practice. Twenty-eight interventions used education and awareness-raising strategies, which also predominantly had only partial beneficial effects. Overall research quality was low to moderate, and the key findings created doubt that interventions to date have achieved meaningful change. Interventions may not have achieved macrolevel change because they did not explicitly address meso and micro change. We conclude with a summary of the evidence for key determinants of the promotion of gender equality, including a call to address men’s emotional responses (micro) in the process of achieving gender equality (micro/meso/macrolevels).

     

Managing victim status in group therapy for men: a discourse analysis

In contrast to the abundance of research on women victims, this article sheds light on the discourse of men who are self-identified as victims of their female partners' abuse. The purpose of this study was to investigate the most salient identity constructions and abuse conceptualizations among participants of group psychotherapy for men who have been abused in intimate, heterosexual partner relationships (i.e., Calgary Counselling Centre's 14-week group program titled "A Turn for the Better"). The men's identity work was examined using the methods and theoretical perspective of discourse analysis. Analysis of the talk demonstrated that the group agenda was to work through the ambiguity of abuse in the service of having the men identify themselves as victims. Thus, both the men and the group facilitators actively constructed "true victim" subject positions through their resistance to commonsense orientations of (a) "men as perpetrators" and (b) whether abuse consisted of more than physical violence. The therapeutic language of resistance was a common strategy used to manage victim status but also required further negotiation as it entailed a component of abuse (i.e., risked positioning the men as abusers rather than victims). The discussion focuses on how these findings may differ from the identity work present in women victim therapeutic groups. In addition, we note that it is difficult to uphold the victim-versus-perpetrator dichotomy in therapeutic discourse.     

The accuracy of simple ordinal scoring of tooth attrition in age assessment

Tooth wear is frequently used as a method of ageing skeletal remains. Fundamental to this method is the ability to measure the amount of tooth wear. The Brothwell chart based on the Miles method of ageing, uses simple ordinal scoring and is frequently used by archeologists. The purpose of the present investigation was to evaluate the accuracy of simple ordinal scoring in recording tooth wear and ageing skulls. A group of Chinese skulls of known age at death was used. The age range was from 16 to 60 years. A single score per molar tooth was used to record occlusal wear. The data were analysed by regression methods using BMDP statistical software. The results showed that molar tooth wear continues throughout the life of the individual. The first molar teeth wear significantly more quickly than do second molar teeth. Use of a simple ordinal score method for recording wear gives an inaccurate estimate of an individual skull's age at death with a very wide 95% confidence interval.     

Fostering Peace After Civil War: Commitment Problems and Agreement Design

Lasting peace after civil war is difficult to establish. One promising way to ensure durable peace is by carefully designing civil war settlements. We use a single theoretical model to integrate existing work on civil war agreement design and to identify additional agreement provisions that should be particularly successful at bringing about enduring peace. We make use of the bargaining model of war which points to commitment problems as a central explanation for civil war. We argue that two types of provisions should mitigate commitment problems: fear-reducing and cost-increasing provisions. Fear-reducing provisions such as third-party guarantees and power-sharing alleviate the belligerents' concerns about opportunism by the other side. Provisions such as the separation of forces make the resumption of hostilities undesirable by increasing the costs of further fighting. Using newly expanded data on civil war agreements between 1945 and 2005, we demonstrate that cost-increasing provisions indeed reduce the chance of civil war recurrence. We also identify political power-sharing as the most promising fear-reducing provision.     

Could cognitive theory enhance development practice?

Development brings about changes in people's lives and their ways of understanding and dealing with their world. It is possible to distinguish between two types of development intervention: (a) improvements in the external situation, chiefly through the provision of public goods; and (b) strengthening people's inner capacities, an endeavour which depends on cognitive processes. The article links basic concepts from cognitive theory to development practice and proposes avenues for further research to study the way in which people develop their capacities and to find ways of supporting such processes. A fuller understanding of cognitive change as a key factor could greatly enhance the sustainability of development projects.