Resiliency among Students at Risk of Academic Failure

Abstract

One area of research that has important implications for the educational improvement of at-risk students is that which examines "resilient" students, or students who succeed in school despite adverse conditions. Research on resilience has been widely conducted in the areas of developmental psychopathology, psychology, sociology, and anthropology during the past few decades. In education, conceptual and empirical work on resilience has recently gained similar recognition as a framework that can help us understand why some students become successful in school, while similar students from the same socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds and communities do not.The construct of "educational resilience" is viewed not as a fixed attribute, but rather as alterable processes or mechanisms that can be developed and fostered. In other words, this approach does not focus on attributes such as ability, because ability has not been found to be a characteristic of resilient students (Benard, 1993;Gordon & Song, 1994;Masten, Best, & Garmezy, 1990). But several alterable processes or characteristics have in fact been found to be associated with resiliency in children. Benard (1993) found that resilient children typically display at least four attributes or personal characteristics, including social competence, problem-solving skills, autonomy, and a sense of purpose. McMillan and Reed (1994) described four other factors that appear to be related to resiliency: personal attributes such as motivation, aspirations, and goals; positive use of time (e.g., on-task behavior,