NCJ Number
204278
Journal
Youth & Society Volume: 35 Issue: 3 Dated: March 2004 Pages: 341-365
Date Published
March 2004
Length
25 pages
Annotation
This article critiques research findings that support an ecological perspective of how resilience is expressed by individuals, families, and communities, and presents emerging research that supports a constructionist approach to the study of resilience.
Abstract
An ecological perspective defines resilience as “health despite adversity.” Informed by Systems Theory, an ecological approach to the study of risk and resilience emphasizes predictable relationships between risk and protective factors, circular causality, and transactional processes that bolster resilience. On the other hand, a constructionist approach to resilience defines resilience as the outcome of the negotiations between individuals and their environments for the resources to define themselves as healthy despite conditions collectively viewed as adverse. Some weaknesses of an ecological approach include the challenge of measuring resilience in difference contexts, definitional problems of what constitutes a positive outcome, and problems with the development of effective interventions that speak to the problems of marginalized people. The constructionist view reflects a postmodern understanding of resilience that better accounts for the cultural and contextual differences in how resilience is expressed. Research that supports resilience as a social construct has revealed a nonhierarchical, nonsystemic relationship between risk and protective factors that is chaotic, complex, relative, and contextual. The implications of approaching the study of resilience from each perspective is examined as the author argues that ecological approaches to resilience have definitional problems with the construct of resilience, with what is considered a positive outcome, and with accounting for resilience in different contexts. A constructionist perspective tolerates diversity in the way resilience is expressed and encourages openness to many different contextually relevant definitions of health by critically deconstructing the power of different discourses regarding health. However, a constructionist approach to resilience has yet to be well articulated despite the emerging evidence found for the usefulness of this approach. The constructionist perspective forces researchers and practitioners to consider whether deviant and disordered behavior can be a search for health resources in specific contexts. New information that informs this type of perspective is called for. Tables, references