Capability Approach
A justice and wellbeing lens focused on what people are substantively able to be and do, not only on resources or stated outcomes.
Amartya Sen / Martha Nussbaum capability approach field
This page is a plain-English practice summary. It attributes the source field and avoids presenting the framework as Positively Devious intellectual property.
What this framework helps with
- thinking about real freedoms and opportunities
- reviewing whether programmes expand young people's choices
- connecting youth development with justice
Three questions it helps teams ask
- What is this work enabling young people to be or do?
- What barriers stop resources becoming real opportunities?
- Who defines which capabilities matter?
How to use it in youth and community work
Use Capability Approach as a lens for better decisions, not as a script. Start with the local context, invite the people affected by the work into the interpretation, and turn the framework into practical questions, design choices and learning habits.
For Positively Devious, this framework matters because it helps explain one part of the wider conditions around positive deviance: the relationships, opportunities, skills, systems and power arrangements that make uncommon positive outcomes more likely to be noticed and learned from.
What to watch out for
- capabilities can be hard to measure simply
- do not decide valued lives on behalf of young people
- resources, conversion factors and context all matter