Linda Theron

A “Day in the Lives” of Four Resilient Youths Cultural Roots of Resilience

Grounded in the examples of four impoverished, relocated youths (two Sesotho-speaking orphans in South Africa and two Mexican immigrants in Canada), we explore cultural factors as potential roots of resilience. We triangulate rich qualitative findings (visual, dialogical, and observational) to foreground the particular, as well as acknowledge the universal, in explicating resilience in transitional contexts. Resilience-promoting cultural practices rely on adults to function as custodians of protective practices and values and on youth actively to accept their roles as cultural cocustodians. Our findings urge service providers toward forefronting the specific cultural context of young people in their therapeutic interventions and toward purposefully championing resilience-promoting cultural values and practices.

AIDS in South Africa: Therapeutic interventions to strengthen resilience among orphans and vulnerable children

Worldwide, approximately 10% of the 34.2 million individuals infected by human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) are under the age of 18. Additionally, 17.8 million children have experienced one or both parents dying of HIV/AIDS. In comparison to other countries, South Africa has the highest per capita of recorded HIV/AIDS cases. These deaths have altered the social landscape by compromising the security and stability of communities and families. In order to address these challenges, research-based and practitioner-recommended interventions are offered to strengthen South African childrens resilience and to facilitate their emotional well-being. In particular, orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) affected by HIV/AIDS must be supported in continuing their education and staying connected with immediate family, extended family, peers, and teachers. Acknowledging the shortage of mental health professionals, school psychologists are encouraged to prepare teachers and caregivers to share responsibility in implementing interventions to support OVC.

Adolescent Versus Adult Explanations of Resilience Enablers: A South African Study

This aim of this article is to account for the resilience of adolescents who are challenged by structural disadvantage and to highlight that how adolescent resilience is accounted for depends on whether adolescent or adult views are foregrounded. To do so, I report a South African phenomenological study. I draw on a thematic content analysis of qualitative data and subsequent frequency count of the themes to contrast how 385 Black adolescents and 284 adults (who educate or provide services to youth) explain what enables adolescent resilience in the face of structural disadvantage. Adolescent and adult explanations differed substantially with regard to personal strengths, family support, and education pathways. These differences reflect conceptualizations of resilience, which are probably related to developmental stage and cultural fluidity and which caution that, despite adult perspectives being valuable, societies need to prioritize adolescent insights.

Seeking and Finding Positive Youth Development Among Zulu Youth in South African Townships

A cross-sectional study explored the presence and power of developmental assets in a sample of youth from rural South African townships. Learners (femalexa0=xa058%; Mage xa0=xa017.1; Nxa0=xa0505) attending three township high schools completed self-report measures of developmental assets and thriving outcomes. Participants reported contextual assets (e.g., family, school, community) in the vulnerable ranges, with gender, family structure, and school type accounting for some differences. Correlation and regression analyses revealed that five asset contexts (family, school, community, personal, social) were uniquely predictive of thriving outcomes. Discussion focuses on contextual expressions of positive youth development among Zulu township youth in challenging environments.

With Pictures and Words I Can Show You

Our researchi with adolescents highlights the necessity of projecting the voices of youth in order to come to understand and share their experiences fully (Cameron & Creating Peaceful Learning Environments Team, 2002a, 2002b). Teenagers have powerful statements to make about their own situations. Their narratives are powerful: They are insightful; they are veridical; they are deeply engaging; and, most importantly, youths have stories that can inform theory and practice.

Teacher Championship of Resilience: Lessons from the Pathways to Resilience Study, South Africa

Resilience, or the process of adjusting well to adversity, is a process that requires input from social ecologies. The resilience literature is unambiguous that a crucial source of such social-ecological support is teachers. However, most accounts of how teachers enable resilience are drawn from Global North studies (i.e. studies in the more developed countries of the Northern hemisphere). To address this gap, my chapter reports how high school teachers from rural, disadvantaged contexts in South Africa informed the resilience of their students. To do so, I draw on phenomenological data generated by 230 Sesotho-speaking adolescents who participated in the Pathways to Resilience Study. Using the lens of Ungar’s Social Ecology of Resilience Theory, I extrapolate teacher actions that enabled students to accommodate structural adversities. I then draw attention to resilience-supporting actions that teachers did not advance. I use both these teacher actions and apathies to theorise changes to teacher education if teachers are to champion resilience in Global South contexts.

Adolescent perceptions of resilience-promoting resources : the South African pathways to resilience study

Resilience, or being well-adjusted despite facing adversity that predicts negative life outcomes, is a process that is scaffolded by resilience-enabling supports. How well resilience-enabling resources support positive adjustment depends, in part, on adolescents’ perceptions of the availability and usefulness of such resources. Currently, there is limited quantitative, generalisable evidence of the aforementioned. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to document how two groups of Sesotho-speaking adolescents perceived available social-ecological resources and how significantly varied perceptions related to these adolescents’ use of formal supports. The advisory panel to the Pathways to Resilience Study clustered participating adolescents into a resilient group (nu2009=u2009221) and vulnerable, or service-using, group (nu2009=u2009186). In comparison with the service-using adolescents, resilient adolescents reported significantly higher perceptions of physical and psychological caregiving. Analyses of variance revealed that higher perceptions of caregiving were associated with higher voluntary and lower mandatory service usage. We concluded that relationship-building was a crucial resilience mechanism and would, therefore, encourage psychologists to both prioritise and facilitate caregiving.

Resilience over time: Learning from school-attending adolescents living in conditions of structural inequality

INTRODUCTIONnCross-sectional studies offer inadequate understandings of adolescent resilience. Nevertheless, few longitudinal studies account for the resilience of school-attending adolescents challenged by the structural disadvantages associated with South African township residence. This prompts two questions: (i) Do the same (or different) resilience-enabling resources inform township-dwelling, school-attending adolescents resilience accounts when they self-explain their resilience at two distinct points in time? (ii) Which resilience-enabling resources, if any, become significantly more (or less) salient over time and how do township-dwelling, school-attending adolescents explain the resilience-enabling value of these resources?nnnMETHODSnTo answer the aforementioned, we conducted a longitudinal qualitative study with 140, township-dwelling, school-attending, South African adolescents (62.1% girls; mean age: 13.8 years [Time 1]; 15.8 years [Time 2]). They completed a draw-and-write activity. This generated visual and narrative data that we analysed using multiple methods (content analyses, chi square tests of frequency counts, and thematic analysis).nnnRESULTSnA comparison of school-attending adolescents accounts of their resilience at two points in time revealed the longevity of nine, generic resilience-enabling resources. A comparison of how frequently adolescents reported these resources at Time 1 and 2 showed significant increases for education, faith-based supports, and peer support. A comparison of adolescents reasons for identifying these three resources showed that education promises an improved future, while all three facilitate respite from hardship and/or mastery over current challenges.nnnCONCLUSIONnThe salience of education, faith-based supports, and peer support can be explained using developmental, contextual and cultural perspectives. This explanation prompts pragmatic and cautionary lessons for resilience advocates.

Using the CYRM-28 With South African Young People

Purpose: The factor structure of the Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM-28) was originally established using a Canadian sample. This factor structure was not confirmed in a study with New Zealand youth. Given such variability, the current study investigated the factor structure of the CYRM-28 in a sample of Sesotho-speaking South African youth who participated in Pathways to Resilience Study. Method: Using latent variable modeling, we tested six varied models in two randomly selected samples (n 1 = 559; n 2 = 578). Results: Fit statistics indicated that a three-factor variation of the New Zealand model, namely, individual, family/relational, and composite context, fitted best. The contextual composite synthesizes the CYRM-28 clusters that measure social skills, educational, spiritual, community, and cultural resources. Conclusion: The contextual composite reflects traditional African ways of being. Accordingly, understanding the factor structure of the CYRM-28 precedes practitioner capacity to promote resilience in an evidence-informed way.

Using Research to Influence Policy and Practice: The Case of the Pathways-to-Resilience Study (South Africa)

Research evidence should inform policy and practice. This is integral to the mandate of ethical research. Especially in contexts, such as sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where disadvantage is rife, researchers have a duty to apply credible research results toward enabling improved life worlds, above all for children and young people. Fulfilling this obligation is no easy task, however. Accordingly, this chapter sensitizes researchers to the complexities of translating and applying research evidence, particularly in SSA. It then offers an alternate route to evidence-informed policy and practice, namely, participatory research approaches that enable researcher-community partnerships. Drawing on an instrumental case—the Pathways-to-Resilience Study, South Africa—this chapter demonstrates how authentic researcher-community collaborations support policy and practice uptake of research results. In this regard, it draws attention to the importance of a strategically chosen, dedicated community-based advisory panel, as well as a flexible, responsive research team that avoids tokenistic researcher-community alliances. Essentially, this chapter offers persuasive evidence that participatory research facilitates traction for research results at grass-root level, particularly among practitioners and young people themselves. In doing so, young people and their communities are served at the same time as macro-level policy change continues to be targeted.