Browsing by Subject "positiivinen poikkeavuus"

Positive deviance is a theoretical behavioural approach. It reviews the impact of education and problem solving through individual activity. Positive deviance as an approach has been involved in larger amount in the development of workplace and organization development. For the educational field the linkage is rather new and additional research was needed. This study does not focus on education as a whole but more specifically the learning process. This is due to the active characteristics of a learning process. Learning is a continuous activity and cannot be bound to certain structures and contexts only. This study wanted to bring knowledge for to support the design of education and teaching processes. The study aimed to place positive deviance to the framework of the radical educational theories. In addition to similarities clear differences were expected to be found between the theories chosen to the comparison. However, the expectation was that positive deviance can be seen as a separated radical educational approach. By reviewing a case example this study aimed to define whether positive deviance can be seen as a new type of approach, answering the current demands set on the education sector. The study was based on written materials and combined phenomenological basis with classifying text analysis. The concept of positive deviance was first defined based on earlier studies focusing on its theoretical background. After concept definition the study compared the positive deviance approach with theories of anarchist pedagogy, pedagogy of the oppressed, swarm intelligence and expansive learning. The comparison was done by using a comparison framework, structured specifically for this purpose. The following seven factors were used as the basis for the framework: activating effect, departure from norms of a referent group, intentionality of behavior, voluntary characteristics of action, individual activity, community activity, and aim to make a positive impact in the society. In order to define the applicability of positive deviance to the education sector, the functionality of the approach was described through a case study executed in Argentina in early 2000s. The study showed that positive deviance is not identical with the studied radical theories. The terminology differed somewhat between the chosen theoretical approaches. However, this did not have a significant effect on the overall comparison results. In this study the review of the case study did not give a full picture on the applicability of positive deviance to the educational field. The results of the case study, however, showed a possibility for the applicability of the approach, as long as the context factors are properly taken into account.