Resilience capacity in school-aged children

Abstract

Resilience, as the capacity of a dynamic system to adapt successfully to challenges that threaten the function, survival, or development of the system, is one of prominent protective processes relevant for positive youth development and problem behavior prevention. In order to explore the resilience capacity of school-aged children, a research was set up with the main aim of assessing the resources available to individuals that may bolster their resilience. Research was conducted during June 2019, on a convenience sample of 298 students of the first and second grade of four Belgrade high schools (49.7% girls; Mage = 15.6, SD = 0.3). Data were collected using the Child and Youth Resilience Measure – CYRM-28 with a fivepoint response scale, α = .90 (Ungar, 2016) comprising three subscales: individual capacities/resources (α = .81), relationships with primary caregivers (α = .81) and contextual factors that facilitate a sense of belonging (α = .80). Results show that students gain a total average score of M = 116.06, SD = 14.99 (min = 48, max = 140), with no significant gender differences in the sample (t(296) = 0.74, p > .05). Following the guidelines of the authors of the instrument, by using T scores, low, moderate, high and exceptional resilience capacity categories of students were made. Based on the results, 13.1% of the sample has low resilience capacity, 32.2% moderate, 40.6% high and 14.1% exceptional. Descriptive analysis shows that, when it comes to three components of the resilience capacity measure, students have somewhat higher relationship (M = 4.34, SD = 0.68) and individual resilience capacity (M = 4.31, SD = 0.53) than contextual capacity for resilience (M = 3.85, SD = 0.71). Research findings indicate that the resilience measure can be used for mapping those students with low resilience capacity and that overall interventions for building resilience should primary include raising contextual resources.