‘Power with:’ we know it’s important, but how do we measure it?

Power with can broadly be thought of as the capacity of a group to enact change and pursue common goals. Group-based approaches are widely used to reach, benefit, and empower women. But how do we know whether they work?

Given the importance of this concept, there are surprisingly few accepted measures of collective agency.

As researchers working with group-based approaches to women’s empowerment, we decided to address this gap. By collaborating with each other and partners, consulting experts in an online workshop and reviewing literature, we developed a framework for examining the underlying concepts and indicators of collective agency that could be used comparatively across cases and types of organizations.

A prominent theme in our workshop discussions was the paucity of existing tools for measuring agency at the group level and for individuals within the group. People also spoke of a need to add more nuance in measuring outcomes of groups, beyond the outcomes externally defined by projects, and to “disarm the notion that forming groups is the same as collective agency.”

The framework we developed helps clarify the concepts to be measured at the individual and group levels, while the four example case studies grappling with these issues illustrate how to measure collective agency in different contexts. We have published our results in the working paper ‘Power with’: conceptualizing and measuring women’s collective agency.

Clearly defining concepts for the framework on collective agency

The first challenge we tackled was fuzzy concepts of collective agency.

Many terms related to collective agency exist in conceptual and applied literature: collective efficacy, collective action, social capital, and more. Definitions vary and interrelationships are unclear. To improve conceptual clarity, we developed a framework relating these concepts (Figure 1).

We started with Naila Kabeer’s (1999, 2002) resources, agency and achievements framework. However, that is usually conceptualized at the individual level, so we needed to consider the connection between the individual and collective levels.

Our framework posits that individual group members have resources, agency and achievements that help support group-level resources, agency and achievements. Putting both individuals and the group into the framework illustrates and reinforces the interaction between them: “Collective and individual agency intersect—we can’t just look at one of these in isolation” (as voiced by a workshop participant).

Resources can include human, financial, physical and social capital. Resources enable agency. We were particularly interested in collective agency, which yields achievements (at the individual or group level) through a two-step process:

1. It leads to collective efficacy, which is a collective parallel to self-efficacy: confidence that group members can effectively work together to achieve common aims.
2. Collective efficacy can then motivate collective action to achieve those common aims.

Of course, without the collective action, the achievements are unlikely. The relevant achievements differ by type of group. Many projects define achievements externally, but it is important to ask what achievements group members value.

From theory to practice, using four case studies

The second challenge was putting the framework into practice. Operationalizing these concepts using four case study projects spanning four countries (Table 1) demonstrated why constructing a common instrument has so far proven elusive.

Since each project had different objectives and worked with different types of groups, it was difficult to devise an instrument that collects data most relevant to the project while remaining applicable to a range of others. There is a tension between the measurement’s specificity and widespread applicability.

Therefore, instead of a single, standardized survey, we developed instruments to provide resources that people can draw upon when developing their own instruments to analyze one or more concepts from our theoretical framework.

Table 1: The four case study projects provided a range of geographical contexts and groups

We also carefully considered the need to go beyond measures of economic achievement, to also include other types of collective achievements, such as increased self-confidence and participation, and members’ satisfaction with groups. Such data can help shed light on what empowerment means to the women in those groups. The project teams—working with us throughout review, framework development, and project instrument development—succeeded in capturing this kind of data to varying degrees, and confirmed the need for such questions in future instruments they or other researchers may develop. For example, adding self-assessment questions about internally defined objectives and how these are determined can make those future tools more insightful.

Effectively capturing the group’s voice can also be tricky. Individual measures of collective agency have the benefit of being more standardized, conventional, and easier to gather—with fewer logistical complexities (e.g., assembling groups and deciding on who speaks for the group). MAGNET collected data from focus group discussions with group leaders as closed-ended questions, where only consensus answers were recorded. This enabled the project to collect more group-level indicators and helped triangulate results from the individual-level surveys, but may have masked differences of opinion within the leadership or failed to unearth other members’ perspectives. Metaketa’s approach was to measure the group’s official achievement (i.e. whether the group successfully received a grant, as well as the objective quality of the grant application).

All-purpose tool still out of reach, but framework useful

While crafting a universally applicable instrument remains elusive, the data that each project collected revealed common aspects that can be standardized to measure collective agency.

For example, there was great commonality in the data collected about group structure and dynamics (e.g., presence of bylaws, mission statement, record keeping, gender composition, and leadership). This kind of data could provide a useful reference for other studies. Other questions can uncover gendered constraints to participation that can then be addressed (e.g., questions about provision for transport, childcare and food at group meetings).

The framework provides a way of thinking through a theory of change for how:

• collective resources facilitate or constrain collective agency
• collective agency can be translated into achievements through collective efficacy motivating collective action
• those group achievements can build resources that, in turn, enable further collective agency

Combined with characteristics of individual respondents and of the groups, measures of these concepts can address researchers’ and practitioners’ questions about what types of women or men are able to exercise voice and agency in different types of groups; and how group composition, organizational structures, and decision-making processes affect collective agency and effectiveness.

For people studying group-based collective agency for research or project impact assessment, our framework, definitions and set of tools offer a useful starting point for thinking about what to measure.