Free Online Course by UNICEF and the University of Pennsylvania

About the organization | University of Pennsylvania:

This university is a private university, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. As a member of the Ivy League, Penn is the fourth-oldest higher education institution in the USA. It considers itself to be the first university in the United States having both undergraduate and graduate studies.

Course Information

This course is on social norms, the norms, and rules which bring communities together. It is teaching how to diagnose social norms, and how to differentiate them from other social phenomenon like customs and conventions. These distinctions are critical to effective policy interventions intended to
establish new, useful norms or to eliminate harmful ones. The course also enables you to how to measure social standards and the expectations supporting them and how to find out whether they cause specific behavioral patterns. The course is a joint Penn-UNICEF project and also includes several examples of
norms that perpetuate behaviors like child marriage, gender-based violence, and sanitation practices. This course includes two parts. The “Social Norms, Social Change” is the first part of these series. In part one, all the basic concepts and definitions, such as social expectations and conditioned preferences that distinguish between various types of social practices like customs, descriptive norms, etc. will be introduced. Please use the below link for a 30% discount on the recommended reference book that accompanies this course! https://global.oup.com/academic/product/9780190622053/?cc=us&lang=en&promocode=AAFLYG6

Course Benefits:

·        100% online _start immediately and learn at your timetable

·        Flexibility in deadlines_ reset deadline following your schedule

·        Beginner Level

·        Nearly 14 hours to complete (Suggested 4 weeks of study, 2-3 hours per week)

·         English is the language (Subtitles: Chinese (Simplified), Greek, Turkish, English, Romanian)

·         Education

·        Social Psychology

·        Research methodologies, and

·        Qualitative Research

Course Syllabus:

What you will learn from this course within four weeks

Week 1: Interdependent and Independent Actions + Empirical Expectations _ this course intends to give you the instruments to understand, measure, and alter collective practices. This module concentrates on two of the basic foundations the social norms theory is built on: the difference between the two
behaviors mentioned above and empirical expectations. Week one is all about: 13 videos (total 48 min), seven readings and two quizzes

Week 2: the theme for the second week is: Normative Expectations + Personal Normative Beliefs

This module adds two more of the foundational building blocks of the theory: normative expectations and personal normative beliefs. Although both are “normative” — that is, both have a component dealing with a “should” — there are significant differences between normative expectations and personal
normative beliefs. Week two is all about: 9 videos (total 30 min), six readings and two quizzes

Week 3: Conditional Preferences + Social Norms In this module, the instructors cover the two aforementioned topics. Of the two, conditional preferences are the last basic building block

of the social norm theory. Week three comprises: 11 videos (total 43 min), four readings and two quizzes

Week 4: the theme is _ “Pluralistic Ignorance + Measuring Norms.” This module covers two essential topics: pluralistic ignorance and measurement of norms. Sometimes individuals approve of their social norms but sometimes do not figuring out when a standard is accepted and when not is crucial for intervention. But how do we know and deal with the endorsement issue? Measurement answers this.

This week includes: 12 videos (total 90 min), nine readings and three quizzes

How to apply?

If you are keen to pursue and benefit from this online course, you can enroll online for free