What Is Positive Deviance?
Positive deviance is a way of finding people or groups who achieve unusually good outcomes despite facing similar barriers to others, then learning from what makes that possible.
Plain-English answer
Positive deviance is a way of finding people or groups who achieve unusually good outcomes despite facing similar barriers to others, then learning from what makes that possible.
Key points
- It starts with existing unusual success in a specific context.
- It looks for behaviours, relationships or conditions that others can learn from.
- It avoids treating communities only as problems to be fixed.
Why this matters
For Positively Devious, the point is not to celebrate exceptional people in isolation. The more useful question is how communities, institutions and programmes can identify what is working and build the conditions that help more people succeed despite barriers.