Organization: UN Children's Fund
Registration deadline: 19 Jun 2016
Starting date: 20 Jun 2016
Ending date: 20 Jun 2016
Philadelphia, PA— The University of Pennsylvania and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) are happy to announce the launch of “Social Norms, Social Change” a new massive open online course (MOOC) produced by Penn Arts & Sciences Online Learning.
Founded in 1740, Penn is one of eight institutions in the Ivy League. As part of Penn’s Online Learning Initiative, Social Norms, Social Change progresses technology-enhanced education on Penn’s campus and beyond.
UNICEF promotes the rights and wellbeing of every child in 190 countries and territories, with a special focus on reaching those in greatest need. Understanding social behaviours and practices and how to transform the ones that are harmful to children is essential to the realization of UNICEF’s mission. The “social norms” theory and methodology explored in this course have been successfully used by UNICEF to address a variety of issues such as sanitation practices or girls’ access to education.
UNICEF and Penn have partnered for years to develop learning programmes around the topic of social norms and social change. Penn Professor Cristina Bicchieri, who has been developing this new theory of social norms, gives an overview of social norms and the importance of policy in sustaining or breaking up harmful practices in lectures that feature interviews with UNICEF experts as well as on the ground footage of UNICEF locations all over the world including Tanzania, Sudan, Sri Lanka and Cameroon.
We are delighted to now share this content broadly and to have the opportunity to discuss and learn with all of you who are interested in positively transforming societies.
This course addresses the follow questions through lectures, discussions and assignments:
- What are social norms? - Definition and cognitive foundations.
- How can social norms be measured? - From the lab to the field
- How can change and long-term social progress be achieved?
- What can we learn from UNICEF’s practice? - Case studies on issues such as child marriage, gender violence and sanitation
Join UNICEF staff members, NGO partners and individuals from all over the world in this course available for free. Starting May 13, 2016 on the Coursera platform.
About Cristina Bicchieri
Cristina Bicchieri is the S. J. Patterson Harvie Professor of Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.She has founded Penn SONG, the Penn Social Norms consulting group, and the Behavioral Ethics Lab (BeLab). She has developed training and has consulted for organizations such as UNICEF, Wellspring, CARE, BBC Media, the Gates Foundation, the World Bank and DFID.
About Arts & Sciences Online Learning
Arts & Sciences Online Learning, a department within the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, collaborates with Penn faculty and staff on instructional design, digital pedagogy and multimedia educational productions. The Online Learning team is supporting the Penn-UNICEF partnership with instructional design, platform support and course building, video production and motion graphics for the Social Norms, Social Change MOOC.
How to register:
Register now at:https://www.coursera.org/learn/norms