This report synthesises the literature on social norms and their interactions with the lives of adolescent girls, and reviews ways to measure social norms. It includes two case studies about programmes that have changed norms around child marriage in Guatemala and female genital mutilation/cutting in Senegal.
The authors suggest that improving girls’ well-being requires providing information about the consequences of harmful norms while creating safe spaces for community members to, together, question existing norms, expand personal capacities and aspirations, and re-imagine existing relationships.