Resiliency: What We Have Learned

A few years ago, resiliency theory was relatively new to the fields of prevention and education. Today, it is at the heart of hundreds of school and community programs that recognize in all young people the capacity to lead healthy, successful lives. The key, as Benard reports in this synthesis of a decade and more of resiliency research, is the role that families, schools, and communities play in supporting, and not undermining, this biological drive for normal human development. Of special interest is the evidence that resiliency prevails in most cases by far -- even in extreme situations, such as those caused by poverty, troubled families, and violent neighborhoods.
An understanding of this developmental wisdom and the supporting research, Benard argues, must be integrated into adults' vision for the youth they work with and communicated to young people themselves. Benard's analysis of how best to incorporate research findings to support young people is both realistic and inspirational. It is an easy-to-read discussion of what the research has found along with descriptions of what application of the research looks like in our most successful efforts to support young people.

• What If All the Kids Are White?: Anti-Bias Multicultural Education with Young Children and Families (Early Childhood Education Series)
• Mental Health in Schools: Engaging Learners, Preventing Problems, and Improving Schools
• Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom
• Can We Talk about Race?: And Other Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation (Race, Education, and Democracy)
• Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, 2nd Edition with an Update a Decade Later
• Learning as a Way of Leading: Lessons from the Struggle for Social Justice
• Readings for Diversity and Social Justice
• The Long Haul: An Autobiography
• How to Write a Master's Thesis
• Speech to Print: Language Essentials for Teachers, Second Edition