Exploring Participant-Generated Examples of Social Change: A Two-Stage, Mixed Methods, Delphi Study

Abstract

Many of the critical challenges facing our world, especially concerning the climate and ecological emergencies, require social change. Community psychology has a longstanding relationship with social change, but our focus on it, frameworks around it, and ability to bring it about varies. This two-stage, mixed methods, Delphi study explores participant-generated examples of and responses to social change to help refocus our praxis at this time. The study gathered both participant-generated examples of social change (Stage 1, n = 190) and ratings of them (Stage 2, n = 232) in terms of significance and valence. A thematic analysis of the 52 examples from Stage 1 produced four themes: (i) Legal protections, rights and equality; (ii) technological impacts; (iii) global and domestic political events and governance; and (iv) societal beliefs and behaviour. In Stage 2, all 52 examples were viewed by participants as being significant. While most were viewed as positive, eight were neutral and six were negative. Meaningful differences were found between average scores across themes in terms of significance and valence. The discussion highlights the broad range of social changes, and their significance and valence variations. It then explores how these findings might build the potential contribution of community psychology in the arena of progressive social change against a global backdrop that needs such changes more than ever.