The construct of resilience has gained considerable attention over the last four decades since researchers observed that children and youth could cope and adapt in spite of adversity. Resilience involves a dynamic process involving an interaction between both risk and protective processes, internal and external to the individual, that can modify the effects of an adverse life event. Adolescence is considered to be a period of vulnerability for most individuals as they often partake in high risk behaviors. Further, those individuals who are in their early college years are faced with the developmental challenges of this life phase which can be complicated by a variety of stresses. Investigating resilience in college students is of great importance as these adolescents may incur additional stress as they make the transition to adulthood. Empirical evidence indicates that resilience is dynamic, developmental in nature, and interactive with one's environment. A variety of variables have been studied to clarify the concept of resilience in adolescents, yet there continues to be inconsistent findings. Although there is an abundance of literature regarding adolescent resilience, little is known about this process in the healthy well-adjusted adolescent college student. Additionally there are inconsistencies in reported findings about whether resilience is a healthy state. There is also evidence in the literature that contradictions exist regarding the effect of social support on this process. After review of the psychometric properties of existing instruments, the Resilience Scale was determined to have the best reliability and validity use for the study of resilience in the adolescent population. An exploratory model testing design was used to explore the relationships among a set of variables, including personal characteristics, levels of stress, high risk behaviors, and levels of resilience in adolescents ages 18 to 20 years. Institutional Review Board approval was obtained prior to data collection. The study participants attended a community college and met the sample selection criteria. A convenience sampling plan was used. Recruitment of participants followed the college protocol for contacting professors teaching general education classes during the planned data collection time. The study measures included a demographic questionnaire, two perceived stress visual analog scales, the Health Behaviors Questionnaire, and the Resilience Scale. Descriptive statistics were computed for all variables for the total sample (n=166) and recoding performed as needed by the instruments. Model testing was performed using correlations, hierarchical multiple regression, and path analysis to identify the strongest predictive variables. The strongest predictive model was personal characteristics and Health Behaviors Questionnaire Emotional Risk to the visual analog scale Stress in General (R2 = .519, F = 3.13, p = .000). This model was used for path analysis and the significant variables were ethnicity (standardized beta coefficients of .165, p = .036) and Health Behaviors Questionnaire Emotional Risk (standardized beta coefficients of .567, p = .000). These findings are important for health care providers to use as a basis for driving interventions to optimize resilience and reduce stress in adolescents. Further research should focus on ways to enhance coping and adaptation in an effort to reduce emotional risks which potentially increase stress in similar populations. Research regarding resilience and stress can further be expanded to the study of additional populations at risk, including adults and others such as nursing students, war veterans, and disaster victims.

Yes / In this paper, we respond to academic critiques of resilience that suggest an inherent affinity with neoliberalism and/or the incompatibility of resilience and critical agency. Drawing on the reflections of people who have found ‘resilience’ a helpful conceptual tool that has informed their engagement with a challenging and unsettling context, we suggest that ideas of resilience, solidarity and agency intersect in complex and interesting ways. Following a brief discussion of our methodology, we begin with an overview of how respondents to an online survey and a series of related conversations conceptualise resilience. We go on to explore how these conceptualisations might relate to critical analysis of the status quo, and to engagement with solidarity and agency. We conclude that there is potential to link these concepts, and that thoughtful engagement with this potential, and with the tensions and questions it raises, might make valuable contributions to both theory and practice.

Parents of children with autism experience high degrees of stress. Research pertaining to the reduction of parental stress in families with a child with autism is needed. In this study, the relationship between family resilience, parent gender, and parental stress was examined. Seventy-one parents of young children with autism were surveyed. Regression and correlational analyses were performed. Results indicated that the vast majority of respondents reported significantly high levels of stress. Lower degrees of parental stress were correlated with higher degrees of family resilience. Family resiliency factors were significant contributors to the shared variance in parental stress. Mothers of children demonstrated higher levels of stress than fathers. Suggested explanations of these findings are presented and clinical and research implications are provided. The findings of this study provide evidence for the importance of facilitating family resilience for parents of children with autism and affirm differing stress levels between mothers and fathers.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Biology / Jesse B. Nippert / Ecological thresholds are breakpoints where small increases in external pressure can generate rapid and difficult to reverse ecological transitions. Often, ecological thresholds are not recognized until they are crossed at a large-scale, leading to unintended and lasting externalities. In tallgrass prairie, we identified ecological thresholds of 3-year fire returns and ~60% grass cover, based on mechanistic field studies and long-term fire and grazing experiments. When tallgrass prairie is pushed passed these thresholds, it makes an abrupt transition to a self-reinforcing shrubland state. Demographic bottlenecks, niche partitioning, and altered fire feedback mechanisms account for both the non-linear nature of grassland-shrubland transitions and the resistance of established shrublands to fire and drought. In the last decade, only ~27% of Central Great Plains tallgrass prairie was burned every 1-2 years, and therefore ~73% of this region is susceptible to shrubland and woodland transitions in the next two to three decades. If transitions to shrublands and woodlands do occur, we expect a multi-trophic loss of grassland biodiversity, decreased cattle production, and the potential for damaging woodland fires in close proximity to human development. However, knowledge of fire thresholds, adaptive management tools, and bottom-up citizen action campaigns are creating a rare window of opportunity to avoid transformation of the remaining tallgrass prairies.

Thesis advisor: Eve Spangler / Thesis advisor: Michael Malec / Efforts to create unambiguous measures of sustainable development without compromising the complexity of the concept are continuously frustrated by technical limitations. Determining and quantifying the relationships between socioeconomic and environmental domains is complicated by the need to account for interactions between varied spatial and temporal scales. The resilience perspective has been used as a conceptual framework for unifying these concerns. Indeed, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (2007) explicitly links sustainable development (spatial scale) and global climate change (temporal scale), and discusses both in terms of resilience. However, conceptual imprecision within the resilience literature persists. This paper outlines the conceptual and methodological complexity of sustainable development; clarifies imprecision that persists within the resilience literature; establishes a conceptual framework for the analysis of socioeconomic development in light of likely impacts of global climate change; and identifies research priorities for the identification and interpretation of sustainable development indicators. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

<p>Begreppen <em>resilience</em> och <em>maskrosbarn</em> behandlar båda ämnet motståndskraft. Resilience är ett vedertaget vetenskapligt begrepp, medan maskrosbarn är ett populärvetenskapligt. Uppsatsen syftar till att uppmärksamma parallleller mellan begreppen, utifrån en metod influerad av komparativ analys och begreppsanalys. Den jämförande analysen har utgått ifrån en sammanställning av fakta, byggd på en litteraturöversikt. Studien har med framgång kunnat belysa begreppens närbesläktade innehåll. Författarna har dragit slutsatsen att det populärvetenskapliga begreppet maskrosbarn har sin kärna i det vetenskapliga begreppet resilience.</p>

Begreppen resilience och maskrosbarn behandlar båda ämnet motståndskraft. Resilience är ett vedertaget vetenskapligt begrepp, medan maskrosbarn är ett populärvetenskapligt. Uppsatsen syftar till att uppmärksamma parallleller mellan begreppen, utifrån en metod influerad av komparativ analys och begreppsanalys. Den jämförande analysen har utgått ifrån en sammanställning av fakta, byggd på en litteraturöversikt. Studien har med framgång kunnat belysa begreppens närbesläktade innehåll. Författarna har dragit slutsatsen att det populärvetenskapliga begreppet maskrosbarn har sin kärna i det vetenskapliga begreppet resilience.

Resilience is a phenomenon that results from strong and well-protected adaptation systems. It is not a one-dimensional quality that either one has or does not have but is instead the possession of many skills and resources at different times and to varying degrees. The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of three resilient refugee children regarding what they felt contributed to their positive adaptation after facing adversity. This study examined how the participants understood the variables inherent in parenting and the new social milieu (e.g. friends, the mosque or church, community agencies supporting refugees, school and community involvement, involvement in sport) promoted their resilience. <p>Three nine to twelve year old refugee children identified as resilient by their teachers were each interviewed three times at their school. Data analysis consisted of developing qualitative themes and patterns from the interviews. These themes and patterns were categorized using the constant comparative method.<p>This study supports and extends the existing understanding of the factors that contribute to resilience in school-age children. The children in this study perceived their families, their friends, and their teachers as protective factors in their positive adjustment following adversity. The vital role of the community coordinator in their school as a person who could facilitate their involvement in school and community events became evident. In addition, this study highlights the role of sport as a contributing factor to resilience. Involvement in sports appears to serve as a buffer against the vulnerabilities of resettlement in a new country for some refugee children. Further research on the importance of sport for children with refugee status would be beneficial for expanding our understanding of resilience, and would have implications for school and community programming.<p>As Canadian society becomes increasingly diverse, the need to discover the processes contributing to resilience in individuals with a wide range of cultural, ethnic and racial backgrounds takes on greater importance. It is hoped that discovering the factors that help refugee children to develop resilience will create a deeper understanding of the processes involved for other children.

Resilience is a phenomenon that results from strong and well-protected adaptation systems. It is not a one-dimensional quality that either one has or does not have but is instead the possession of many skills and resources at different times and to varying degrees. The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of three resilient refugee children regarding what they felt contributed to their positive adaptation after facing adversity. This study examined how the participants understood the variables inherent in parenting and the new social milieu (e.g. friends, the mosque or church, community agencies supporting refugees, school and community involvement, involvement in sport) promoted their resilience. <p>Three nine to twelve year old refugee children identified as resilient by their teachers were each interviewed three times at their school. Data analysis consisted of developing qualitative themes and patterns from the interviews. These themes and patterns were categorized using the constant comparative method.<p>This study supports and extends the existing understanding of the factors that contribute to resilience in school-age children. The children in this study perceived their families, their friends, and their teachers as protective factors in their positive adjustment following adversity. The vital role of the community coordinator in their school as a person who could facilitate their involvement in school and community events became evident. In addition, this study highlights the role of sport as a contributing factor to resilience. Involvement in sports appears to serve as a buffer against the vulnerabilities of resettlement in a new country for some refugee children. Further research on the importance of sport for children with refugee status would be beneficial for expanding our understanding of resilience, and would have implications for school and community programming.<p>As Canadian society becomes increasingly diverse, the need to discover the processes contributing to resilience in individuals with a wide range of cultural, ethnic and racial backgrounds takes on greater importance. It is hoped that discovering the factors that help refugee children to develop resilience will create a deeper understanding of the processes involved for other children.

This qualitative autoethnographic study was the process by which I, a young Latina, was able to evocatively and therapeutically write about the incestual abuse and poverty experienced from age six until the age of 17. It was also the method by which I decided to disclose how I moved from being considered at-risk and became resilient. This study demonstrated the basic tenets of autoethnography and how by overcoming poverty and ending a cycle of abuse, I was able to embrace the spirit of forgiveness. Insight into the discourse of a dysfunctional family is shared, allowing me to offer a message of hope, and shatter stereotypes. The study concludes that autoethnography as a process permits me to tap into new-found autonomy. Autoethnographically, this study represents my life journey, but it can represent the life of many readers who have lived in the United States in impoverished conditions and/or have lived through physical, emotional, verbal and sexual abuse by family members or intimate others. This study legitimized and validated my story as a survivor. Consequently, the plot of the story focuses on the violent acts and conditions, not the people. Focusing on the acts and conditions, while incorporating dialogue permitted me to involve the reader more closely in the story. I leaned on my doctoral studies to expand my understanding of the abuse and poverty I experienced (Holt, 2003). I found that resiliency was central to my life story. Embracing resiliency empowered me to discover new ways of thinking about my life experiences, which included using a salutogenic approach, or a positive model that offered “alternatives to the deficits-based explanatory models of environmental determinants of health that have dominated the literature” to accept the raw and cruel encounters I was exposed to and turn my thoughts into a healthier way of thinking (Stewart & McWhirter, 2007, p. 490). Tugade and Fredrickson (2004, p. 320) would say that I obtained a psychological resilience to effectively cope and adapt, even though I faced “loss, hardship, or adversity.” Ultimately, I discovered that resilience is a “state, a condition and a practice” (Knight, 2007, p. 544).