Understanding attitudes and countering stigma to tackle poverty and inequality

Those living in poverty and experiencing intersecting inequalities across class, race and gender are often blamed for their own predicament and face negative stereotyping, stigmatisation and discrimination. Addressing this challenge requires ambitious ways of rethinking how we live together through understanding why negative attitudes are formed and reproduced, how stigma and processes of discrimination, marginalisation and exclusion can be countered, and what role the cultivation of empathy can play in creating a more caring and equal society.
 
This research aims to understand lived experiences of poverty and social protection and the attitudes of service providers and the wider public towards social protection beneficiaries. It is a cross-comparative two-country of localised research in Milton Keynes in the UK and Laguna in the Philippines (Laguna) with a focus on related welfare/ social protection programmes, namely Universal Credit (UC) in the UK and the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4P) in the Philippines.
 
The research seeks to offer unique and policy-relevant three-way insight into issues of service use, especially stigmatisation, by understanding:

1. experiences of service users
2. attitudes of service providers, and
3. attitudes of the ‘general public’ towards service users

Learn more about the 'Understanding attitudes and countering stigma to tackle poverty and inequality' project on the Open Societal Challenges' website.