Abstract
Traditionally resilience research has neglected understandings of what enables young people living in the global South, including South Africa, to develop well when their life circumstances are challenging. The fact that more recently resilience studies have begun to explain how context and culture outside of the global North shape processes of positive adjustment is, therefore, encouraging. However, studies which prioritise youth-voices and youth explanations of how context and culture shape resilience remain limited. As a result, promoting youth resilience in culturally and contextually sensitive and respectful ways remains a challenge. This challenge confounds the obligation of researchers and service providers, who work with young people challenged by disadvantaged contexts, such as South African townships, to develop evidence based interventions aimed at improving the wellbeing of young people. This chapter presents a strategy on how to design, implement, and monitor resilience-focused interventions with South African youth based on evidence-informed intervention practices stemming from the Pathways to Resilience Project (P2RP). In particular, this chapter foregrounds how cultural and contextual responsiveness is paramount to resilience-enabling interventions for marginalized youth from collectivistic cultures.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Casale, M., Wild, L., Cluver, L., & Kuo, C. (2015). Social support as a protective factor for depression among women caring for children in HIV-endemic South Africa. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 38(1), 17–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-014-9556-7.
Chuong, C., & Operario, D. (2012). Challenging household dynamics: Impact of orphanhood, parental absence, and children’s living arrangements on education in South Africa. Global Public Health, 7(1), 42–57.
Dass-Brailsford, P. (2005). Exploring resilience: Academic achievement among disadvantaged black youth in South Africa. South African Journal of Psychology, 35(3), 574–591. https://doi.org/10.1177/008124630503500311.
Gray, P. (2011). The decline of play and the rise of psychopathology in children and adolescents. American Journal of Play, 3(4), 443–463.
Guillemin, M., & Drew, S. (2010). Questions of process in participant-generated visual methodologies. Visual Studies, 25(2), 175–188. https://doi.org/10.1080/1472586X.2010.502676.
Jefferis, T. C., & Theron, L. (2015). Community-based participatory video: Exploring and advocating for girls’ resilience. Perspecitives in Education, 33(4), 75–91.
Lester, S., & Russell, W. (2008). Play for a change: Play, policy, and practice. A review of contemporary perspectives. London, UK: National Children’s Bureau.
Liebenberg, L., & Theron, L. (2015). Innovative qualitative explorations of culture and resilience. In L. C. Theron, L. Liebenberg, & M. Ungar (Eds.), Youth resilience and culture: Commonalities and complexities (pp. 203–215). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer.
Louw, D. A., & Louw, A. E. (2014). Child and adolescent development (p. 2014). Bloemfontein, South Africa: Psychology Publications.
Luitel, B. C., Rai, I. M., Gautam, S., Pant, B. P., & Gautam, S. (2014). The educational resilience of children in urban squatter settlements of Kathmandu. In The World Bank.
Masten, A. S. (2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development. American Psychologist, 56(3), 227.
Masten, A. S. (2011). Resilience in children threatened by extreme adversity: Frameworks for research, practice, and translational synergy. Development and Psychopathology, 23(02), 493–506. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579411000198.
Masten, A. S. (2014a). Global perspectives on resilience in children and youth. Child Development, 85(1), 6–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12205.
Masten, A. S. (2014b). Ordinary magic: Resilience in development. New York, NY, US: Guilford Press.
Masten, A. S. (2018). Resilience theory and research on children and families: Past, present, and promise. Journal of Family Theory and Review, 10(1), 12–31.
Masten, A. S., & Wright, M. O. (2010). Resilience over the lifespan: Developmental perspectives on resistance, recovery, and transformation. In J. W. Reich (Ed.), Handbook of adult resilience (pp. 213–237). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Mertens, D. M. (2009). Transformative research and evaluation. New York: Guilford Press.
Mertens, D. M. (2014). Research and evaluation in education and psychology: Integrating diversity with quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. Sage publications.
Mertens, D. M. (2016). Assumptions at the philosophical and programmatic levels in evaluation. Evaluation and Program Planning, 59, 102–108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2016.05.010.
Munyaka, M., & Motlhabi, M. (2009). Ubuntu and its socio-moral significance. In M. F. Murove (Ed.), African ethics. An anthology of comparative and applied ethics (pp. 63–84). Scottsville, South Africa: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.
Nicolaides, A. (2015). Gender equity, ethics and feminism: Assumptions of an African Ubuntu oriented society. Journal of Social Sciences, 42(3), 191–210. https://doi.org/10.1080/09718923.2015.11893407.
Panter-Brick, C. (2015). Culture and resilience: Next steps for theory and practice. In L. Theron, L. Liebenberg, & M. Ungar (Eds.), Youth resilience and culture: Complexities and commonalities. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
Phasha, T. K. (2010). Educational resilience among African survivors of child sexual abuse in South Africa. Journal of Black Studies, 40(6), 1234–1253. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934708327693.
Pretorius, T., & Theron, L. (2018). ‘A pillar of strength’: Empowering women and the resilience of township-dwelling adolescents. YOUNG. Advanced online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/1103308818795081.
Rutter, M. (2012). Resilience: Causal pathways and social ecology. In M. Ungar (Ed.), The social ecology of resilience: A handbook of theory and practice (pp. 33–42). New York, NY: Springer.
Rutter, M. (2013). Developmental psychopathology: A paradigm shift or just a relabeling? Development and Psychopathology, 25(4 Pt 2), 1201–1213. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954579413000564.
Sanders, J., Munford, R., Liebenberg, L., & Ungar, M. (2014). Multiple service use: The impact of consistency in service quality for vulnerable youth. Child Abuse and Neglect, 38(4), 687–697. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2013.10.024.
Theron, L. (2013). Community-researcher liaisons: The pathways to resilience project advisory panel. South African Journal of Education, 33(4), 1–19.
Theron, L. (2014). Being a ‘turnaround teacher’: Teacher-learner partnerships towards resilience. In M. Nel (Ed.), Life orientation for South African teachers (pp. 203–216). Pretoria, South Africa: Van Schaik.
Theron, L. (2015). Pathways of South African youth resilience: Commonplace, contextually and culturally relevant collaborations, and caveats. In F. E. Gouws (Ed.), Adolescence. Pretoria, South Africa: Heinemann.
Theron, L. (2016). Researching resilience: Lessons learned from working with rural, Sesotho-speaking South African young people. Qualitative Research, 16(6), 720–737. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794116652451.
Theron, L. (2017a). Adolescent versus adult explanations of resilience enablers: A South African study. Youth & society. https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118x17731032.
Theron, L. C. (2017b). Using research to influence policy and practice: The case of the pathways-to-resilience study (South Africa). In Handbook of applied developmental science in Sub-Saharan Africa (pp. 373–387). New York, NY: Springer.
Theron, L., Cockcroft, K., & Wood, L. (2017). The resilience-enabling value of African folktales: The read-me-to-resilience intervention. School Psychology International, 38(5), 491–506. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034317719941.
Theron, L., Jefferis, T. C., & Van Rensburg, A. (2014). Khazimula: An indigenous strategy to systemically support youth resilience. North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus.
Theron, L., & Phasha, N. (2015). Cultural pathways to resilience: Opportunities and obstacles as recalled by Sotho students. In L. Theron, L. Liebenberg, & M. Ungar (Eds.), Youth resilience and culture: Complexities and commonalities. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
Theron, L., & Theron, A. M. C. (2014). Meaning-making and resilience: Case studies of a multifaceted process. Journal of Psychology in Africa, 24(1), 24–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/14330237.2014.904099.
Theron, L., Theron, A. M. C., & Malindi, M. J. (2013). Toward an African definition of resilience: A rural South African community’s view of resilient Basotho youth. Journal of Black Psychology, 39(1), 63–87. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095798412454675.
Ungar, M. (2008). Resilience across cultures. British Journal of Social Work, 38(2), 218–235. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcl343.
Ungar, M. (2011). The social ecology of resilience: Addressing contextual and cultural ambiguity of a nascent construct. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 81(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-0025.2010.01067.x.
Ungar, M. (2012). Social ecologies and their contribution to resilience. In M. Ungar (Ed.), The social ecology of resilience: A handbook of theory and practice (pp. 13–31). New York, NY: Springer.
Ungar, M. (2013). Resilience, trauma, context, and culture. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 14(3), 255–266. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838013487805.
Ungar, M. (2014). Practitioner review: Diagnosing childhood resilience—A systemic approach to the diagnosis of adaptation in adverse social and physical ecologies. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12306.
Ungar, M. (2016). Varied patterns of family resilience in challenging contexts. Journal of Marital Family Therapy, 42(1), 19–31. https://doi.org/10.1111/jmft.12124.
Ungar, M. (2017). Which counts more: Differential impact of the environment or differential susceptibility of the individual? British Journal of Social Work, 47(5), 1279–1289. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcw109.
Ungar, M., Connelly, G., Liebenberg, L., & Theron, L. (2017). How schools enhance the development of young people’s resilience. Social Indicators Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-017-1728-8.
Ungar, M., Liebenberg, L., Dudding, P., Armstrong, M., & van de Vijver, F. J. (2013). Patterns of service use, individual and contextual risk factors, and resilience among adolescents using multiple psychosocial services. Child Abuse and Neglect, 37(2–3), 150–159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2012.05.007.
Van Rensburg, A., Theron, L., & Rothmann, S. (2015). A review of quantitative studies of South African youth resilience: Some gaps. South African Journal of Science, 111(7–8), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.17159/sajs.2015/20140164.
Van Rensburg, A., Theron, L., Rothmann, S., & Kitching, A. (2013). The relationship between services and resilience: A study of Sesotho-speaking youths. The Social Work Practitioner-Researcher, 25(3), 286–308.
Van Rensburg, A., Theron, L. C., & Ungar, M. (2017). Using the CYRM-28 with South African young people: A factor structure analysis. Research on social work practice. Advanced online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049731517710326.
Wright, M. O., Masten, A. S., & Narayan, A. J. (2013). Resilience processes in development: Four waves of research on positive adaptation in the context of adversity. In S. Goldstein & R. B. Brooks (Eds.), Handbook of resilience in children (pp. 15–37). New York, NY: Springer.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Jefferis, T.C., van Rensburg, A., Theron, L.C. (2019). Strategies for Resilience-Focused Interventions for Youth Within Collectivistic Cultures: Reflections on the Pathways to Resilience Project. In: Van Zyl, L., Rothmann Sr., S. (eds) Evidence-Based Positive Psychological Interventions in Multi-Cultural Contexts. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20311-5_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20311-5_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-20310-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-20311-5
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)