Principles of Social Change:
Partnerships for Social Justice
Leonard A. Jason, Ph.D.
DePaul University
Keynote address presented at the 2013 SCRA Biennial
Conference, Miami, Fl.
The Starting Point?

Change begins by helping people identify
issues for which they have strong feelings
– Paulo Freire (1970)

Social change more likely
– we have a passionate interest
Intuition: Our Guide
 Is
the beginning of social change
– recognition that something is wrong and unfair
 The
feeling is clear
– something needs to change
 Intuition
can steer us in the right direction
– toward second-order change
Principles of Social Change
 Structural,
second-order change
 Confronting power abuses
 Mobilizing coalitions
 Having a long-term time perspective
 Using feedback to fine tune work
Concrete Examples Illustrate
How Efforts Directed Toward
 Agenda
setting
 Policy formulation
 Policy implementation
 Policy evaluation/revision
The First Principle of Social Change

Determining the nature of the change desired
− cosmetic/short-term fix
− address the root of the problem
First-Order Change
 Attempts
to eliminate deficits and problems
– promises to solve the most deeply rooted
problems with simple solutions
– provides, at best, short-term solutions
– can render people powerless to overcome their
oppression
Second-Order Change
Influences the individual and his or her social network
 Alters shared goals, roles, and power relationships

Environmental
Social
Individual
Bronfenbrenner (1977)
Kelly (1968)
Moos (1979)
Example Second-Order Change
 Each
year thousands of children are either
injured or killed in car accidents
– due to not being placed in appropriate infant
and car seats
 In
the 1980s, leading cause of death for
children under one year of age
– car accidents because infants were not in
appropriate infant seats
1980s, National Coalition
Attempted Influence Legislation
 Illinois
Child Passenger Safety Association
– a community-based organization
trying to get child restraint legislation
Focus on a Proposed Illinois
Child Passenger Restraint Law
 Children
under the age of four required to
be placed in an approved child or infant car
seat
 Children aged four to six required to be
placed in either an approved restraint
system or a secure seat belt
Could We Influence Illinois
Legislators to Vote for this Bill?
 Our
research team collected behavioral data
by looking inside cars to see whether or not
infants and children were placed in car
restraints
– also collected telephone surveys regarding
attitudes toward child-restraint bill
In Collaboration with Illinois
Organization
 Sent
critical information to random half of
the state legislators
– assess whether our targeted letter had made a
difference in voting for the bill
 Letter
was received one week before vote
– the information was clear and concise
» increased our chances that the letter would be both
read and remembered
Content in Letter to Legislators
 140
children in Illinois were killed and
25,828 injured in automobile accidents
– over the last 6 years
 93
percent of Illinois children were not in
adequate restraints while riding in cars
 78 percent of adults supported the child
passenger restraint bill
Significantly Increased Voting
for the Bill
 79%
of Senators who received the
information voted for passage of the bill
– only 53% of Senators who did not receive the
letter voted for the bill
 Governor
requested a copy of our findings
before signing the legislation
Immediate Behavioral Outcomes
 For
children between the ages 1-4
− car restraint use increased from 13 to 42%
 For
infants less than one year of age
− appropriate restraints increased from 49 to 74%
Longer-Term Outcomes
 Comparing
deaths
two years before to
the period two years
after the law
– Child deaths caused
by traffic accidents
decreased by 53%
Comments Illinois Child
Passenger Safety Association
 “The
data were helpful and important and of
high priority to have as part of the
armamentarium”
 “The data were very, very interesting. It was
a building block in the passage of the bill.”
 “Those who had the data and understood
them, it made them more forceful and vocal
in support of the bill.”
Second-Order Change
 We
worked collaboratively with
community-based organizations in Illinois
– our data influenced legislative officials to
support laws that contributed to second-order
change
» In this case protecting the safety of infants and
children when driven in automobiles
Principle One:
Focus on Second-Order Change

Only through more structural interventions
will we make a significant difference in
solving our social problems
– Such as example involving legislative change

Second-order interventions direct precious
resources in more productive ways
– go beyond a reactive response by enacting
measures to avoid potential problems
The Second Principle of Social Change

Identifying the power holders
− Creating second-order change can seem
overwhelming
− powerful people or organizations control whether
change will be enacted
− Social inequality are caused by an underlying
abuse of power
− redistributing power is often a crucial component to
second-order social movements
 Causes
of abuse and underlying power
structure difficult to see clearly
– gut instincts is powerful tool to uncover the
veiled power abuses
 We
must use the same passion and intuition
that helps one see the path towards effective
second order change
– to identify and analyze the distribution of
power
Tobacco kills over 400,000 people yearly
The MOST preventable cause
of premature disease and death
Case Example: Tobacco Industry
 Tobacco
industry is responsible for enticing
many young people to begin smoking
 Every day 3000 American adolescents
become established smokers
– of these children, 1,000 will eventually die of
tobacco-related illnesses
Tobacco Industry
 Multiple
efforts to widely distribute cigarettes to
youth
– how to fight this Industry that has vast resources?
Did You Know…
Early 1980s
 We
launched school-based
smoking prevention
programs
– students told us merchants
were openly selling them
cigarettes
– contradiction with our
tobacco prevention messages
How To Stop the Tobacco
Industry?


Person oriented approaches compromised by
social and environmental factors such as
merchants selling tobacco to youth
The Tobacco industry had power to influence any
laws that could affect sales of tobacco to youth
Exploratory Study
 Our
intuition pushed us to explore the
students’ critical input
– assessed illegal merchant sales of tobacco
– we sent youth into stores to purchase cigarettes
» over 80% of merchants sold cigarettes to minors
Media picks up our Study
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Officer Talbot Calls Me After
Seeing This TV Broadcast
 Mentioned
Woodridge Illinois had solved
this problem
– sending letters to all the merchants
 Collaboration
began with collecting data
– found over 70% of merchants sold tobacco to
youth
An Intervention is Designed to
Deal with this Problem

Merchants in Woodridge were required to
purchase a license to sell cigarettes

Fined up to $500 and/or one day license
suspension for selling to minors

Minors caught smoking, $25 parking-style ticket
(parents are notified)
Outcomes

Two years after implementing the two-pronged
program
– rates of merchant cigarette sales to minors decreased
from an average of 70% to less than 5%
– adolescent smoking decreased over fifty percent in a
Woodridge junior high school
Officer Buzz Talbot of
Woodridge: National Figure

Using Woodridge as his model, Officer Talbot
was instrumental in the passage of a federal
amendment
– States are now bound by federal law to reduce illegal
sales of tobacco to minors

Officer Talbot worked with grass roots
organizations throughout the U.S. in disseminating
his successes in Woodridge
 Invited
testify congress
during Tobacco
Settlement
– encourage progress in the
anti-tobacco movement
» reducing youth access to
tobacco
» increasing costs of
cigarettes
DiFranza (2009)
 Laws
prohibiting sales of cigarettes to
minors and stepped up enforcement of those
laws in the United States from 1997-2003
– led to 20.8 percent drop in the odds of 10th
graders becoming daily smokers
Research Made Difference
 Now
a consensus that sales to minors
should be prevented illustrated by
– Framework Convention on Tobacco Control
unanimously adopted by the World Health
Assembly
– attracted more than 172 member states
representing 90 percent of the world’s
population
Paradigm Shift
 Focusing
on both the youth and their
environments and ultimately changing policy
– initially over 80% of merchants sold minors
tobacco illegally
– today the vast majority of merchants do not
 Culminated
in the passage of a federal
amendment that led to states curtailing
illegal sales of tobacco to youth
Second-Order Change Addressed
Power Structures
 Tobacco
industry’s formidable resources
– to manipulate American youth and provide
them easy access to tobacco
 Power
holders like the Tobacco Industry
had to be challenged by coalitions
– community psychologists can play an important
role in this advocacy effort
The Third Principle of Social Change

Focused and collective efforts can lead to broad
second-order change through the use of our third
principle
− identifying and mobilizing individuals and
community groups to influence the cultural and
political landscape affecting social change
The Key to the Third Principle
 Citizen
participation in democratic
processes
– ensure that community members have
meaningful involvement
 The
third principle of social change
– community coalitions can change power
structures that perpetuate first-order
institutional ways of treating people
Oxford House Example Citizen
Participation
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NIH Reviewers: Randomization
I
thought it was not possible -- as each OH
votes on whether to allow new people in
– 7 years working on proposal with Paul Molloy
– Paul said he would make it happen

Later learned another research group had
approached Paul Molloy years before I had
– They asked to do a randomized study
– Paul said “no” to them as he had not built up a
supportive relationship of trust with them
Problem of NIMBY
 Lawyer
asked for our help over a town
trying to close down the local Oxford House
– claiming that there could be no more than five
unrelated individuals living in one home
 Examined
our national Oxford House data
− we found that a larger house sizes or eight to
ten residents less criminal behavior
 Findings
successfully used in several court
cases stop closing Oxford Houses that had
six or more non-related residents.
Paul Molloy’s note to me
“
…The dispute has been ongoing for six
years! The town will pay attorney’s fees,
which are about $105,000 and a fine to the
Department of Justice. The key to their
decision appears to be your research
showing that larger houses had better
outcomes than the smaller ones. Thanks.
Once again reason and logic prevailed.”
Community coalitions
 Such
as the example of Oxford House and
DePaul University
–
revolutionize how we treat our most vulnerable citizens
» millions need affordable housing
» millions of homes are available
» Oxford House represents one creative approach
–
deal both of these issues synergistically
Third Principle of Social Change
 Community
coalitions can be mobilized to
transform many of the most serious
problems that affect our society
– can change power structures that perpetuate
institutional ways of treating people
» bottom-up social change movements can create
community-based programs that allow people to be
reintegrated into society
The Fourth Principle of Social Change

Second-order change takes time
− progress can be gradual and uneven
− will be setbacks along the way

Patience and a long-term commitment
– the fourth principle of social change
– critical aspects of social change movements
Patience and Persistence

Essential
− in opposing powerful vested interests intent on
maintaining the status quo
− and in amassing coalitions to confront
institutionalized abuses of power
How Can Activists Stay
Committed to a Cause?
 Small
wins can help sustain and mobilize
citizen groups
– to continue to pursue even larger objectives
 In
the pursuit of social justice
– the importance of small wins cannot be
overemphasized
Case Example of Persistence

Over 60 million people have chronic health
conditions
–

over age 40, 60% have one or more chronic
conditions
One more controversial chronic illnesses is
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)
−
many health care professionals continue to
doubt the scientific validity
Consequences of Stigma
 95%
of individuals seeking medical
treatment for CFS reported feelings of
estrangement
 66% of patients with CFS say their illness
was made worse by doctor’s care
Multiple problem confronting
patients with CFS

Called derogatory “Yuppie-Flu” Illness
– contributed to the negative attitudes that health care
providers have towards those with this syndrome

The name given by CDC to the illness
– trivial and stigmatized term

CDC’s case definition of CFS
– did not specify cardinal symptoms

Tests used to diagnose CFS
– were biased finding psychiatric problems
Example Inappropriate Research

CFS only had a perception that they had
limitations in energy and activity
Control
CFS
Day 1
Day 2
Focus Prevalence Estimates

CDC in the late 1980s and early 1990s suggested that
only about 20,000 people had this illness
− characterized as having yuppie flu

If medical personnel believe that CFS is a relatively
rare yuppie flu disorder
− than physicians might minimize or misinterpret the
physical complaints of patients with CFS
– this could lead to the mistrust and lack of communication
as reported by patients
Flaws CDC prevalence
 Case
ascertainment methods
− physicians identified patients who presented with
unexplained fatigue-related symptoms; referred
those patients for a medical examination
 Excluded
low income individuals did not have
access to medical settings
− because many physicians doubted the existence of
CFS
− they might not have made referrals to CFS
prevalence research studies
Use of Intuition to challenge
these inappropriate methods
Gut feeling to reach out to patients, professionals, and
organizations who might become potential allies
 Over time, a network of collaborators assembled

– several patients, graduate students
– the CEO of the CFS patient organization
– an epidemiologist, a physician, a psychiatrist, a
biostatistician, and a survey researcher
10 year effort



Financial support from the largest CFS patient self-help
organization
− we conducted a small community based prevalence
study
− our prevalence rates were considerably higher than
reported by the CDC
Approached NIH program officials
− not that interested in a CFS prevalence
Our intuition again led us to
– kept resubmitting grants until we were successful in
securing NIH funding
DePaul Community Based Study
 Phoned
a random community-based
sample of about 28,000 individuals
 Those with who self-reported having
symptoms
– completed medical work ups
Findings
 Prior
CDC estimates less than 20,000
– our estimates 800,000 to 1,000,000
 Of
those diagnosed with CFS
– 90% never been diagnosed prior our study
– Jason et al. (1999)
 Ethnic
minorities had higher CFS rates than
European-Americans
– CFS rates were not greater among those with higher
incomes
– so much for CFS being a rare, “yuppie flu”
Due to Wide Dissemination
of this Study

Appointed the Chairperson of the Research
Subcommittee of the CFS Advisory Committee
– which makes recommendations regarding CFS to the US
Secretary of Health and Human Resources

Next ten years, able to work on other policy related
issues
– such as the inappropriate name given this illness (now
called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis), an expanded case
definition, CDC leadership problems
Small Wins
 It
is easy to become overwhelmed when
confronting complex problems or power
holders
– by focusing on one small piece at a time, tangible
change and success can be achieved
Many Obstacles to Commitment
 10
years worked on a prevalence study that
successfully challenged the myth that CFS
(Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) was a “Yuppie
Flue” Disease
– small wins during this time led to opportunities to
work at federal level
– each small win functions as a life-affirming oasis
for activists
The Fifth Principle of Social Change

Measuring your success:
− evaluations can help redefine the essence of each
principle of social change
− program evaluations can also
− reveal weaknesses
− identify where the weaknesses stem from
− help focus efforts on critical stages of systemic change
The Last Principle of Social Change
 The
effects of social action are often not
immediate or easily identifiable
− while the dynamic nature of social activism
campaigns may make evaluation challenging
 Measuring
progress is vital and lies at the
heart of each community strategy
– can use self-report data, archival, policy, or
actual behaviors
Case Example:
"Dog Pooper" study
 After
inviting an Alderman to my
community psychology class
− I said to myself I would tackle whatever he
mentioned as his most pressing community
issue
 When
he responded to me that it was
uncollected dog feces
– my mouth fell open in disbelief
With Trepidation
I
counted all fresh dog
feces within an 8 by 5
block area
– the fact that 1147
droppings were within this
area
– dog litter was a serious and
prevalent problem within
our community
Getting Our Hands Dirty
 Recorded
the following variables
for 5 hours daily in a block at
DePaul University
– the number of dogs
– the number of dogs who defecated
– the number of dog defecations
picked up by their owners
– defecations were picked up and
weighed each morning
Changing Behaviors

During the baseline phase
− few dog owners were observed to pick up after their
dogs
− over 19 pounds of dog defecations were deposited in the
target block

When anti-litter signs were posted
− no changes on the criterion measures

When all dog owners were shown how to use a
plastic bag to pick-up feces
– 82% of the dog owners picked up after their dogs
Testified at a City Council Hearing
 Reporter
for the Chicago Daily News:
– “In what surely must be the most bizarre
academic studies in the nation…”
– they subsequently calculated from our work
that 382,000 pounds of dog excrement was
deposited on city streets daily
 The
reporter told me that “the story
generated great readership interest”
Editorial in the Sun Times

“We’re not sure what contribution this study makes to the
discipline of psychology, but if it persuades the city council to pass a
stronger ordinance to discipline dog owners, it will have been more
than worth the effort…the city could always fund the professor’s
research project. The pursuit of knowledge aside, it did manage to
clean up one neighborhood.”
A
cartoon in the Chicago Daily News of had a
dog with a diaper on him with the title:
Solution to a problem
Community Groups Seek Help
a
9-month collaborative relationship with
another Alderman and a community group
– expressed interest in reducing dog litter
Outcomes at a 13-month follow-up
Percent Reduction in Dog Litter
Percentage Reduction
100
90
80
70
0
Entire Area
Target Block
Policy Outcomes
 Testified
at City Hall to support a proposed
ordinance
– require dog owners to have in their possession a
pooper scooper when walking dogs
 This
ordinance was passed by the City
Council
– Chicago one of the first cities in the country to
pass a pooper scooper ordinance
“In the past, this
problem has often
been scoffed at and
not taken seriously.
Your comments
regarding the dog
defecation problem
altered that
perception greatly.”
For the first time, the legislators were willing to
seriously consider enacting legislation to help
alleviate the dog litter problem
 Chicago’s ordinance became a model for other
similar ordinances in towns around the country

Final Principle of Social Change
 Consider
the tangible short- and long-term
results of our activities
 Using evaluation techniques
– we can determine whether or not a particular
intervention or social change strategy has
achieved its goals
– few initiatives are successful without some type
of documentation to support our efforts
Five Principles of Social Change
Determining the nature of the change desired: is it
a cosmetic, short-term fix, or does it address the
root of the problem.
 Identify the power holders
 Creating coalitions: identifying and working with
others who share your goals.
 Learning patience and persistence: small wins are
crucial to attaining long-term goals.
 Constantly evaluate and refine strategies and
tactics to find the most effective means of bringing
about change

Examples Using these Principles
Reduce children’s death through encouraging use
of appropriate seat restraints
 Reduce youth access to tobacco as well as
decreasing youth tobacco use
 Promote the expansion of safe housing for people
with addictions
 Challenge inappropriate myths and stigma
regarding chronic fatigue syndrome
 Promote laws to reduce uncollected dog litter

Lessons Learned
 Each
principle of social change represents
part of the social change journey
− but they are subtly interrelated
 When
used tactfully in concert
– they can create an unstoppable force in any
movement
Thanks to all my collaborators
and the staff and volunteers at my
center
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