Best practice examples

1. Why do we need social psychology to fight antigypsyism?
2. Psychological interventions to reduce prejudice
3. The unique characteristics of antigypsyism
4. Best practice examples
5. Recommendations

Interventions in the field are determined by many different factors. They may be theory-driven taking into account the processes described by psychological sciences and a result of careful designing and testing, they may stem from institutional traditions and experiences building on (sometimes substantial) anecdotal evidence, they may develop in a bottom-up, iterative process as a result of the dialogue between local communities and NGOs, or they may be a combination of all of these. However, whether an intervention achieves the desired impact, especially whether it achieves genuine and lasting change in social relations, is not easy to determine. Impact assessment in the form of field experiments, especially measuring long term effect is rare [33].

Therefore, best practice examples cannot always be identified based on a scientific impact assessment, but rather on a combination of different forms of assessments:

• identifying the psychological processes targeted by the intervention and connecting them to the theoretical foundations and corresponding experimental results;
• taking into account the qualitative assessment of the intervention by different actors;
• critically assessing the method from the different aspects of antigypsyism and the particular social and political context both from the perspective of the majority population and Roma people.

Next part contains examples of best practice interventions from five countries (Hungary, Romania, Ireland, Slovakia and France) of the PolRom project. While previous sections focused on a comprehensive list of relevant psychological prejudice reduction interventions from the academic literature, next section provides real life examples of best practices interventions based on our project. Each best practice example is linked back to the theoretical table using the outlined categories; individual, intergroup and societal level interventions.

Based on a Scottish review of prejudice and discrimination reduction [34], the interventions are presented into 3 categories focusing on activity type.

Read more about the 3 types of best practice examples here:

1. Educational Interventions (General Diversity Training)
2. Interactive, Experiential, and Intergroup Interventions
3. Public Showcasing Interventions

Or go to the next chapter Recommendations

[33] Paluck, E. L., & Green, D. P. (2009). Prejudice reduction: What works? A review and assessment of research and practice. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 339-367. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163607 

[34] MacBride, M. (2015). What works to reduce prejudice and discrimination? A review of the evidence (ISBN: 9781785447235). Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research. https://www.gov.scot/publications/works-reduce-prejudice-discrimination-review-evidence/