South African, urban youth narratives: resilience within community

Abstract

South African youth in low-income, urbanized communities are exposed to high levels of daily stressors, which increase their risk to negative outcomes. Resiliency can provide avenues for youth to transcend adversity and may contribute to their positive development. To provide a deeper understanding of the pathways that adolescents use to overcome adversity, this paper examined future aspirations of South African youth, and how these aspirations were connected to resiliency factors framed by their lived context. A phenomenological approach was used to explore the perceptions of high school students. Fourteen focus groups with girls and boys (N=112) were conducted. Data was analyzed using a thematic approach. Discussions of the harsh conditions undermining the community’s future highlighted opportunities for improvement. Community connectedness, hope and altruism were prevalent in youth’s responses and could be used to facilitate community and individual resiliency. Our overall findings have important implications for positive youth development efforts.

The impact of adolescents' racial and ethnic self-identity on hope

“…Adolescents scoring high in hope‐pathway were more likely to be positive thinkers, planners, problem‐solvers and able to cope with daily difficulties as they arise (Madan & Pakenham, ; Roesch, Duangado, Vaughn, Aldridge, & Villodas, ). A qualitative study found that among youth at‐risk, the component of hope‐pathway included acknowledging the barriers to success, identifying directions that could impede success and making a conscious choice to devise an alternative direction (Mosavel, Ahmed, Ports, & Simon, ). In this way, youth not only imagined success, but they also chose a strategy that they believed would help them rise above adversity.…”

“It Has Changed”: Understanding Change in a Parenting Program in South Africa

“…The mutual benefit of improved communication reported by both caregivers and adolescents extends the notion of a type of respectful reciprocity 27 and may be consistent with the increase in social awareness during adolescent development. [43][44][45] Our findings suggest that the program gave legitimacy to this reciprocity through enabling caregivers and teenagers to retrieve a sense of being valued and being able to confer value on others in the "fun" space of the workshop without fearing consequences. Although literature commonly refers to "parenting support pro-grams," these should rather be understood as "parent and adolescent programs" so that the mutual participation and benefits are marked from the outset.…”

Fatores relacionados à resiliência de adolescentes em contextos de vulnerabilidade social: revisão integrativa

“…Mexican-American Boys' Positive Outcomes and Resilience: Importance of Social Support and Individual Attributes Estudio descriptivo cualitativo / IV Mosavel et al (20) , 2015…”