Vers une société plus juste
Why do this study?
People who receive benefits from social assistance programs are the most stigmatized group in Quebec and prejudice against them is widespread among the population. Presently, no rigorously evaluated intervention has been shown to be effective in reducing prejudice against this particularly vulnerable group of the population. It is important to reduce these prejudices, as they have negative effects on people’s mental health, are at the root of discriminatory practices, and are an obstacle to the adoption of public policies that promote a more just distribution of wealth.
Objectives
Vers une société plus juste is a community-based participatory research project that aims to:
- Describe the reality of people receiving social assistance and the improvements needed in public policies to reduce social inequalities in health;
- Develop an intervention to decrease prejudices against these individuals and increase support for public policy improvements;
- Assess the feasibility of the intervention, i.e., its acceptability, implementation and potential effectiveness.
Methodology
The intervention will consist of three 90-minute sessions facilitated by a quartet of one facilitator-researcher and three facilitators-citizens receiving social assistance. It will build on best practices in anti-bias efforts, namely a combination of education and contact strategies. The content of the sessions will describe the reality of people receiving social assistance and present priority improvements to public policies.
Intervention participants will complete questionnaires assessing their prejudices about people receiving social assistance benefits on three occasions: before receiving the intervention, immediately after the intervention, and then four months later. We will also examine the participants’ appreciation of the content and format. Statistical analyses will be conducted to see if the intervention reduces prejudice and if the effects vary by gender and social position of the participants. Semi-structured interviews will also be conducted with citizen facilitators to document their experience.
If the results are promising, i.e., if positive changes are observed and if the acceptability of the intervention is high for both the participants and the citizen-facilitators, we will plan to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention using a randomized control trial. Once formalized, the intervention materials will be made available through our partners.
We also plan to create a co-training brigade that will bring together the citizen-facilitators who took part in the first deployment of the intervention. This aims to ensure that the citizen-facilitators who will be trained in the future can benefit from the experience of the citizen-facilitators who participated in the intervention before them.
Intervention design – Between January 2020 and December 2022, 24 meetings were held to plan the activities that would take place at each session. The main activity, based on the prejudice-reduction strategy of contact, was spread over the three sessions. It was decided that the citizen-facilitators will share their life story with the participants, then answer the participants’ questions. Other activities have been planned for each of the sessions. The first session includes a quiz aimed at demystifying prejudice – an intervention based on education and awareness strategies in reducing prejudice. The second session includes an activity where participants have to put themselves in the shoes of a person receiving last-resort financial assistance and manage a fictitious budget – this intervention is inspired by the perspective-taking strategy. The third session includes a collective brain-storm on the actions that can be taken to improve the living conditions of people receiving social assistance.
Design of the intervention’s material – Material has been created according to the needs of each activity: information sheets, pictorial scenarios, etc. The citizen-facilitators each wrote a testimony in three parts about their life story – this story was what the citizen-facilitators shared with the participants across the intervention. In addition a training guide has been written for future animators in order to facilitate the large-scale deployment of the intervention. It includes detailed explanations about each activity, as well as tips to ensure the smooth running of the intervention. Lastly, a participants’ guide was written. It includes information on the reality of people receiving social assistance, and also serves as a visual support for the activities that take place across the intervention.
First deployment of the intervention – In the fall of 2022, the intervention was tested in four settings: two workplaces, a university, and a CEGEP. Field notes were taken to document the meetings: participants’ reactions, highlights, difficulties encountered, etc. These notes will be used to improve the intervention before its future deployments.
Coming soon
Researchers
Janie Houle – Principal Researcher
Community Psychologist
Professor, Department of Psychology, UQÀM | Researcher, Research Centre of the University Institute in Mental Health of Montreal
Jean-Marc Fontan
Sociologist
Professor, Department of Sociology, UQAM | Researcher, Centre de recherche sur les innovations sociales, UQAM
Normand Landry
Professor, Departement of Social Science, Arts and Communication, TÉLUQ | Chairholder, Chaire de recherche du Canada en éducation aux médias et droits humains.
Carole Clavier
Professor, Department of Political Science | Researcher, Institut Santé et société
Isabel Heck
Collaborator
Community researcher
Research Staff
Coming soon
Peer researchers
Coming soon
Partners
Coming soon
Coming soon
Fonds de recherche du Québec (Projet-pilote Engagement 2020-2021), $100 000