In this article, we have presented the two-sided research design that we developed for answering the question about how and what professionals and other participants of outreach social work practices learn from innovating their own practices. We distinguished five strengths the representatives of which all have to learn to play new roles in order to improve democratization and enabling the citizenship of citizens in vulnerable situations. Without outreach research, it would not have been possible to expose the connection between the learning of representatives of these strengths and other transformation processes on an individual, team, and systemic level. This underlines the importance of outreach research for successful innovations in the social field. In our opinion, our two-sided research design is a precondition for the co-creation of these relative autonomous strengths and the connectedness of each of these three levels. This article is based on the article about the research design of a multi case study of four educational cases Martin Stam wrote for International Journal Of Qualitative Studies in Education (2013b). This research design also formed the basis for a multi case study of six social work cases (published as 'Geef de burger moed' (2012)) and of three social quarter teams (is still ongoing). Both publications were used as a pad for his lecture for NOSMO, HvA en Andragogenkring in 2013. The article presented here elaborates on the findings of the social work and social quarter team case studies.
There is an ongoing social debate concerning Dutch primary school design related to persistent physical environmental problems such as poor indoor quality and inflexible spatial elements. Increasing complexity and building construction process failures, as well as inexperienced school principals, also seem to be important impact factors. This analysis employed a multi-level model which reflects the interrelationship between needs, interests and views, which are in turn responsible for physiological, psychological and biophysical problems in the school-building design process. It shows that antagonistic interests seem to impede rational innovative pathways which could be used to enhance synergetic solutions. These interests impact on the process by affecting the objective decision-making process adversely, making the problems faced unnecessarily complex due to competing subjective desires. The new approach proposed here increases awareness by mirroring actors’ behaviour and their most important needs, possibly leading to a decrease in school-building design problems. By means of introducing a positive psychological approach and viewing these profound human needs as a social fractal, it is possible to create a new paradigm which might solve the school-design crisis. As a lever for changing the current processes, new tangible school-building design parameters also might become available. The aim of this study was to analyse the current problem patterns and assess the possibility of producing more synergetic solution patterns. On this basis, we developed a needs-centred guideline for primary schools.
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Empowerment is een centraal begrip in het hedendaagse pedagogisch denken en handelen. In dit artikel wordt empowerment besproken in het licht van de positieve psychologie: een stroming in de psychologie die bestudeerd hoe het welbevinden en optimaal functioneren van mensen kan worden bevorderd.In de positieve psychologie heeft recent een paradigmaverschuiving plaatsgevonden. De interactie tussen individu en omgeving wordt niet langer begrepen in termen van causaliteit maar vanuit het narratief van complexiteit. In dit narratief wordt de interactie tussen individu en omgeving opgevat als een complex dynamisch systeem waarin er zelden sprake is vandirecte oorzaak-gevolg relaties (lineaire causaliteit). Bij het ontstaan van empowerment spelen zowel multi-causaliteit, multi-finaliteit als circulaire causaliteit een rol. Empowerment wordt in dit artikel dan ook niet beschouwd als een inherent psychisch kenmerk van een individu, maar als iets dat zich vormt op basis van iemands dagelijkse ervaringen in interactie met zijn socialeomgeving.In dit artikel onderzoeken we wat het denken vanuit het perspectief van complex dynamische systemen betekent voor de pedagogische visie op empowerment en welke gevolgen dit heeft voor interventies in de pedagogische praktijk.TREFWOORDENEmpowerment, Complexiteit, Complex Dynamische Systemen, Positieve Psychologie, Sociale interventies, Zelfregie, Eigen Kracht, AgencyABSTRACT- ENGLISHIn the Netherlands, empowerment plays a major role in the daily work of pedagogues and in social policies. Empowerment is closely related to the assumptions of positive psychology. This is a scientific approach that focuses on strengths instead of weaknesses, building the good in life instead of repairing the bad. Empowerment also is about taking control of one’s life and by doingso enhancing wellbeing. Therefore empowerment fits the concept of positive psychology.Recently there has been a paradigm shift in positive psychology where research is going beyond the individual person as the primary focus of enquiry and is looking more deeply at the groups and systems in which people are embedded: less in terms of causality and more as a narrative of complexity. In this narrative, the interaction between individuals and the environment is seen as a complex dynamic system.In this article we discuss empowerment and agency in the light of complexity and the implications for the daily work of pedagogues.
