The SATNAV Project: a comprehensive school-based programme of change centred around individual morality and moral contexts

• In Event: Understanding Crime Through the Lens of Situational Action Theory: Empirical Findings and Methodological Advancements

Abstract

The SATNAV Project is a comprehensive school-based programme of change centred around individual morality and moral contexts. The project is guided by Situational Action Theory, the well-evidenced link between antisocial morality and adolescent crime and problem behaviour, and the increasingly apparent failings of punitive behaviour management practices in schools. SATNAV has a longitudinal, participatory, and co-produced research design and is being developed with continual practitioner collaboration. This work involves targeted individual-level moral development interventions in three UK schools to date (SATNAV Compass), being delivered simultaneously alongside thoroughly embedding prosocial moral values within the curricular and noncurricular aspects of the school (SATNAV Climate) as well as adaptations to the wider school context, such as teacher-student relationships, staff hiring and training, and community engagement (SATNAV Global).

This paper presents the process evaluation from several pilot trials of the SATNAV Compass intervention programme and the SATNAV Climate work. With focus on individual morality in combination with the moral context, this work has the potential to contribute to child development and improving school climates meaningfully and comprehensively to encourage positive decision-making to give children opportunities to reach their full potential. These impacts are expected to extend outside the school context and beyond compulsory education. We discuss the potential for SATNAV to be administered in different youth settings including youth work charities, schools, and youth offending teams.

Dr Neema Trivedi-Bateman is Lecturer in Criminology at the Criminology, Sociology, and Social Policy department at Loughborough University and Principal Investigator of SATNAV Compass.

Dr Beth Hardie is an affiliated researcher to the Centre for Analytic Criminology at the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge. Dr Hardie is Principal Investigator of SATNAV Climate and SATNAV Global and is also Managing Editor of The European Journal of Criminology.

Study funding: The British Academy & Loughborough University.

Authors

• Neema Trivedi-Bateman, Loughborough University

• Beth Hardie, University of Cambridge