NEW RESOURCE: Working with Men and Boys for Social Justice Assessment Tool
CRIS’s Masculinities and Social Cohesion project team have created The Working with Men and Boys for Social Justice Assessment Tool. The Tool provides leaders, designers and facilitators of programs for men and boys the opportunity to review, reflect on and strengthen principles of gender and social justice in their work.
The Tool’s design is informed by research and practice in the areas of social justice, gender studies and the critical sociology of men and masculinities. It has been designed for work with men and boys as programs in this area do not always support social and gender justice.
The Tool provides a list of items in four key areas that support positive social change in programs designed for men and boys. It is a self-evaluation measure that offers program leaders an assessment of areas in their programs that reflect strength and areas where they might improve. The Tool provides access to a range of practice-oriented resources to support program improvement. Members of the team are also available to work with programs in their use of the Tool.
The Tool has been developed in conjunction with practitioners in the field. It is intended for use by:
Organisations and advocates seeking to assess and improve their own work with men and boys;
Organisations and advocates seeking to open discussion with program leaders, facilitators and participants about the strengths of their program and what they could focus on to improve their program; and
Others seeking to assess the merits of work among men and boys.
Lead researcher Amanda Keddie describes the importance of the Tool:
‘This assessment Tool comes at a time of high media, policy, and societal attention to issues of gendered violence which has led to a surge of different programs designed to support inclusive and healthy masculinities. While most of these programs are positive in their engagement with men and boys, they can differ markedly in their approach, and they may not reflect social and gender justice principles. The Tool draws out the aspects of practice that are important in working with young men and boys in socially just ways for social justice purposes.
In this project, we conducted research with community programs designed to support healthy and inclusive masculinities. The research identified many different types of programs with different models and approaches. Program leaders drew our attention to the successes and challenges in their work with boys and men. The insight from this research combined with the wealth of expertise in our Team led to the creation of the Tool’.
The project team are seeking to further develop the Tool and its utility through working with programs and organisation and will host workshops in early 2023 for this purpose.
Watch the launch of the Assessment Tool and hear from the project team.