Paper short abstract:

What kind of assessment of social norms should be done prior to nudge intervention? Ethnographic fieldwork is conducted in schools, where the students and teachers will be nudged into more sustainable commuting. Nudges are behavioral steering methods that can help combat climate change.

Paper long abstract:

Nudges are behavioral steering methods, which can act as a support for other more traditional ways to affect peoples’ choices (for example taxes, laws, subsidies). They can also be used to steer climate change related behaviors. Other phenomenon that has proven to have considerable effect on individuals’ choices are social norms. The paper uses a bricolage of methods from ethnology and behavioral sciences to study the commuting habits of teachers and school children.

I will investigate what kind of assessment of social norms should be done for the subject group before the nudge intervention and how social norms can be measured. I will conduct ethnographic fieldwork in Finnish schools, where the students and teachers will be nudged into more sustainable commuting. The fieldwork is done in the January-February of 2022, consisting of research walks done in 4-6 schools. The walks will include observation of the school grounds and interview with the headteacher of the school, janitorial representative and a transport planner from the municipality. An application for mapping geospatial data about school commuting circumstances is used for collecting and equalizing the observations from different schools.

The collected data helps with co-creating effective and targeted nudges with the stakeholders. The goal of the interventions is to increase active transportation methods (e. g. cycling or walking) and decrease private motoring (e. g. parents driving their children to school). The interventions can have a significant influence on the students transportation choices and exercise habits, as well as the air quality around the school.