Black students’ recollections of pathways to resilience: Lessons for school psychologists

Abstract

Drawing on narrative data from a multiple case study, I recount the life stories of two resilient Black South African university students to theorize about the processes that encouraged these students, familiar with penury and parental illiteracy, to resile. I aimed to uncover lessons for school psychologists about resilience, and their role in its promotion, from these students’ recollections. To this end, I first synthesize what the resilience literature reports as generic processes of resilience. Thereafter, I illustrate how these processes were common to the students’ stories of resilience, drawing attention to how Africentricism shaped these processes. The understanding of resilience that flows from this case study illustrates the more recent contentions that resilience theory needs to account for the influence of culture on positive adjustment and translate this into culturally sensitive interventions towards resilience. The broad implications for school psychologists include recognition that resilience processes are nuanced by the socio-cultural ecology in which youths are situated and awareness that resilience processes require multiple ecosystemic partners. For school psychologists working with students of African descent, the importance of understanding how resilience processes are informed by an Africentric world view is foregrounded, along with attentiveness to the caveats implicit in this lesson.

Keywords

Advocacy Africentric ecosystemic psycho-educational qualitative resilience processes socio-cultural ecology South Africa

Both vulnerability and resilience are socially constructed and, consequently, dynamic phenomena (Bottrell, 2009). Young people are placed at risk of negative life outcomes when, among other risk factors, parents are illiterate, incapacitated, or unavailable; families are impoverished; communities are shackled by social injustices, violence, terrorism, or war; or neighbourhoods are beset by natural disaster. If, despite such risk, young people adjust well and develop normatively (however this might be defined by a specific social ecology at a point in time), they are considered resilient. Although earlier resilience theories foregrounded the individual in their accounts of positive adjustment, later explanations emphasize that socio-cultural ecologies are co-responsible for processes of positive adjustment, thereby explaining resilience as a systemic or co-constructed process (Masten, 2001, 2011; Ungar, 2011). For youth to resile, their efforts to adjust well need actively to be supported by their social ecologies (Ungar, 2011).

Masten and Wright (2010) noted that resilience processes are underpinned by fundamental protective systems. Their review of resilience studies revealed six generic supports: Healthy attachments; self-regulation (scaffolded by interactive learning); self-direction and mastery experiences (supported by socially engineered opportunities); problem-solving skills (mediated by learning experiences); productive meaning making (informed by interaction with others and value systems); and cultural and religious traditions. No one system was singled out as more influential, but youth-other transactions (e.g. -people, -community resources, -values, or -traditional practices) were integral to the description of each, reinforcing an understanding of resilience processes as co-constructed within a given social ecology.

Understanding that resilience is a reciprocal, systemic transaction has implications for the training and practice of school psychologists (SPs; Bartolo, 2010; Little, Akin-Little, & Lloyd, 2011; Theron & Donald, 2013; Toland & Carrigan, 2011). Of particular importance is the need for SPs to recognize the common and unique elements to resilience-promoting transactions and to respect the socio-cultural and temporal positioning of youth as they partner with SPs towards resilience (Theron & Donald, 2013). Such recognition is compounded by the relative under-researching of how socio-cultural situatedness shapes resilience processes, particularly among non-Eurocentric youth (Masten, 2011). In 2008, a comprehensive report by the American Psychological Association, Task Force on Resilience and Strength in Black Children and Adolescents (APA, 2008) demonstrated how an Africentric world view uniquely informed the resilience processes of African American youth. One reason for this report was the general lack of acknowledgement in the resilience literature of ‘ … racial, ethnic, and cultural forces, nuances, and competencies, particularly as they relate to resilience and strength of African American youth’ (APA, 2008, p. 1). SPs should not perpetuate this neglect.

In their daily interaction with students who are well adjusted, despite challenging life circumstances, SPs should be asking: Why is this student resilient? How might the socio-cultural ecology of this student be instrumental to his/her resilience? How might the variability of resilience processes shape SP interventions towards resilience? The importance of these questions is accentuated by the likelihood that many schools are increasingly populated by immigrants from diverse cultural backgrounds (Annan & Priestly, 2011).

These same questions directed the study on which this article reports. To answer them, albeit tentatively, I recount the life stories of two Black South African students. Both illustrate the systemic roots of their constructive responses to poverty. I use these case studies to highlight that, although their resilience processes had much in common with those reported for Eurocentric youth, their processes were also uniquely nuanced by their socio-cultural ecologies. Based on these exemplars, I argue for SPs to adjust their understanding of resilience processes, and concomitant practice, according to the socio-cultural ecology in which youth are situated.

Method

Sampling and participants

The stories of Tebogo and Zinzi are drawn from an ongoing narrative enquiry into the life stories of Black South African students who have adjusted well, despite the odds of maternal illiteracy and impoverished home circumstances (where poverty was deduced from students qualifying for government aid to complete graduate studies). Positive adjustment was inferred from academic success and peer perception of resilience indicators. Academic success is associated with resilience among Black South African youth (Dass-Brailsford, 2005). The official attrition rate of first-year students in South Africa is 40% and probably higher for students from disadvantaged backgrounds (Maree, Fletcher, & Sommerville, 2011). In this study, academic success was, therefore, inferred from students having passed at least the first year of tertiary study. Peer acceptance, participation in constructive extracurricular/community-based activities, and a positive attitude were used as indicators of positive adjustment. Although there are many other possible indicators, and although indicators offer limited evidence of resilience, the aforementioned are widely associated with resilience in Black South African youth (Theron & Theron, 2010).

To recruit participants, I asked university students participating in another resilience-focused project to recommend a government-sponsored student who was academically successful and well adjusted. The South African government supports students from significant poverty by means of its National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS). Students are not secretive about financial aid, as government sponsorships are often the only pathway to tertiary study. They unanimously nominated a male mature-student pursuing a degree in education, and I invited him to participate. Following his informed acceptance and participation, he nominated a fellow student (also fitting the criteria), and so students continued to be recruited by means of purposive, snowball sampling (Creswell, 2007).

To date, 14 students (from two universities) have participated, following detailed informed consent procedures and reassurances of their right to withdraw. For the purposes of this article, I highlight two of these students’ stories. Creswell (2007) suggested that two stories are typically reported. I chose Tebogo and Zinzi’s stories because both are richly typical of the remaining stories.

Procedures

Each student related his/her life story, with special emphasis on how poverty had challenged positive adjustment and how he/she had managed to adapt well, despite these challenges. I met with students in my office or in a university space of their choice (e.g. a seminar room) and facilitated their accounts by asking: ‘Please share the story of your life with me. I am particularly interested in the adversities that challenged you, and how you adjusted well in the face of these’. On occasion I probed for more complete understanding, or prompted continued recounting (e.g. ‘And then?’), making my role more that of listener than interviewer as is typical in narrative inquiries (Chase, 2011). All stories were audio-recorded with the students’ permission. On average, each student spent two hours recounting his/her story.

Analyses

To extract the essences of these students’ resilience processes and how their socio-cultural ecologies were instrumental to these, I engaged in inductive content analysis of all the transcripts (Chase, 2011). A collaborating resilience-focused researcher conducted an independent inductive analysis. Once we had compared our analyses and reached consensus on the emerging themes, I invited some of the participants to comment critically. These steps, and conference-facilitated inputs from experienced social scientists and resilience researchers, encouraged trustworthy findings (Creswell, 2007). The two case studies presented below epitomize the findings.

Results

Tebogo’s story

When he told me his story, Tebogo was 43-years-old. He had successfully completed his first year towards a Bachelor of Education and was progressing well in his second year, having obtained many distinctions in his mid-year exams. Although he was content to finally be studying (a lifelong dream), his family’s poverty continued to challenge him.

Tebogo recalled growing up poor. Mostly, this meant going to bed hungry and being barefoot, even in winter. His grandmother—an illiterate domestic worker—raised Tebogo and his three siblings. Tebogo’s father absented himself, and his mother was forced to live away from her children, as there was no employment closer to home. His grandmother became their mainstay:

My grandmother looked after us from the day we were born until the day she passed away … in our culture the children stay with grandparents, [so] when my mother went to work, we stayed with Granny. Granny was working also … until her late eighties … she was a bond … glue to our family.

Tebogo’s grandmother was religious. She encouraged them to pray as a family and to sing hymns. She often reminded Tebogo that God would support him to surmount daily difficulties. He reported that this had helped him to succeed, partially because he had to adjust his behaviour so that it fit his grandmother’s and God’s expectations.

His grandmother was also a practical woman who prioritized education. She implored the nuns at a local Catholic school to allow Tebogo and his siblings to complete their schooling there, even though they could not pay school fees. Tebogo experienced this positively, and he reciprocated:

It made me feel special and, uh, happy that there were people that were caring for us. … The sisters [nuns] helped us … were always providing clothes, food … So we used to go and do gardening for them, you know, just as a way of appreciation.

After he had completed school, Tebogo spent six years at a seminary. When he realized that priesthood would curtail his filial duty to his grandmother and mother, he terminated his studies. As an African male, he had a responsibility to support these women. He then worked wherever he could, but finding and sustaining employment was challenging, not least because he was a young Black man in what was then apartheid South Africa. He recalled that his teachers (the nuns) and his grandmother had taught him about connectedness, particularly the importance of connectedness to God and to one another. In times of unemployment, he applied their lessons and turned to his extended family and church-based networks for support. Whenever he could, he also invested in his community. He frequently sheltered homeless children and inspired them towards education or defended people whom he believed were being victimized. His being able to make a contribution enabled him, as he had been enabled by his networks:

Granny used to say when they were growing up a stranger was never forsaken … they would always make sure that a stranger received food, is welcome. So, uh, today it’s basically the love of people that keeps me moving on … it’s very important to share yourself.

His belief in contributing to others encouraged a desire to be a teacher, and so he eventually commenced university studies. Tebogo’s ‘moving on’ was further supported by optimistic meaning making. Although he reported that there was little that was uncomplicated in his life—even being a mature student in undergraduate classes was challenging—Tebogo interpreted problems as opportunities that could be optimized with perseverance:

… but I always say that for one door to open another one must close … when I look back, I saw a lot of things as a door being closed for me––OK for that time it was a door being closed because I had no source of income, I would go and sit at home again, start again to look for something else to do. But, I wouldn’t have been here if all those other doors never closed for me.

He concluded his life story with a reminder that his was a story-in-progress and that he was looking forward to the many successive doors that would open, as surely as others closed.

Zinzi’s story

When she told me her story, Zinzi was 24-years-old and close to graduating with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in psychology. She recalled how her life had been a series of challenges. Although these had not yet abated, she believed her future would follow an upward trajectory.

Zinzi’s childhood was spent with her maternal grandmother, and although they survived only on her illiterate grandmother’s meager income, Zinzi was happy. Her biological father played no role in her life. Her young mother lived far away and could not afford to raise her: ‘My Grandmother was like my mother, and my mother was like my sister coz she was just coming to visit … my Grandmother helped a lot––with my school fees, my clothes, everything’.

When Zinzi was 13-years-old, her grandmother died, and she was forced to relocate to her biological mother, her husband, and their family. She found this relocation challenging. Part of her being uprooted meant attending a high school that was dysfunctional. One consequence of this was that Zinzi graduated from high school without university exemption, effectively thwarting her dreams. For six months, she was undecided about her future, until she heard about a local college where she could complete a diploma. There she met a lecturer who explained to her that she could use her college qualification to gain university entrance. She recalled this as a stepping stone, even though she was inadequately prepared for the university experience, partly because of her poor quality schooling and partly because nobody in her family had ever attended university:

I did very well [at college] and there was a lecturer who asked me if I would want to go to university, uh, after completing college. I couldn’t let that opportunity pass … She helped me with everything … She helped me to apply for NSFAS [financial aid], she paid my deposit and the administration fee … she explained to me that they need more Black psychologists … I didn’t know what’s psychology––the only module I knew was Sesotho and history. So it was a bit of a shock. I just had to adjust myself, adapt to what’s going on at university.

Zinzi progressed well, but in her penultimate year of study, she became pregnant. Even though she did not withdraw, her studies were interrupted because her pregnancy was difficult. Her mother took her to a traditional healer and a community member who was considered a prophet. They encouraged Zinzi to use traditional medicines and rituals and to believe that God and her ancestors would support her to carry her baby full term:

… they told me to talk at the same time with my ancestors, as well as God, to help me and stay with me, fight with me … so he [the healer] was like no things are gonna work out if I just follow his advice. I learnt to be positive about things … my ancestors and God, they are with me and supporting me, protecting … so I feel protected and supported at the same time.

Being a mother complicated her life further. Although her mother was assisting her, Zinzi was expected to breastfeed her daughter for the first two years in accordance with cultural practice. For many months, she commuted daily from the university residence to her mother’s home to do so, while trying to maintain her studies. In the midst of this disruption, Zinzi missed a course needed to complete her degree, and administration failed to alert her. She recalled her devastation when she realized that she would not graduate with her cohort, but also that her culture supported her to reframe what had happened as an opportunity and to remain tenacious:

So even this year when most of my peers … were graduating, my heart was like, OK, I was supposed to be one of them, but (sigh) it’s fine … it gives me more space and time. I saw it as an opportunity … I don’t know about other racial groups, but with us Blacks, you know, we just have that thing of, um, being patient you know and staying in something, fighting …

Zinzi concluded by enumerating the many possibilities she believed were within her grasp and accentuated that these offered opportunities for her to make a contribution. She emphasized how becoming a professional potentiated support for her child, her mother, and her community more broadly. She was secure in her belief that her mother, her ancestors, and God would continue to partner with her as she forged ahead. Her smile was broad as she ended her story with ‘I’m going for it’.

Discussion

Tebogo’s and Zinzi’s life stories illustrate that positive adjustment is not a solo undertaking. They also illustrate, as posited by Masten and Wright (2010) and others (see Cicchetti, 2010; Luthar, 2006), that basic protective transactions underpin resilience. For example, Tebogo’s positive adjustment was partly nurtured by his determination to contribute to others and the satisfaction this afforded him (i.e. agency and mastery), his realignment of his behaviour with his grandmother’s and teachers’ life lessons and cultural mores (i.e. self-regulation), and his constructive appraisal of hardship (i.e. meaning making). It was also nurtured by extended family (i.e. attachment), and church-based networks and spirituality (i.e. culture and religion). Similar examples underscore Zinzi’s story. For example, she too was buoyed by grand-maternal and spiritual attachments, by positive reframing of setbacks, and by her determination to make a positive difference to family and community. However, although their stories support the understanding that resilience-promoting transactions are reciprocal and probably common across contexts, they highlight how a socio-cultural ecology nuances resilience processes (Masten, 2011; Ungar, 2011). While narrative enquiry, with its reliance on memory, does not generate infallible findings (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), Tebogo’s and Zinzi’s foregrounding of their socio-cultural ecologies alerts theorists and practitioners to the importance of not assuming that Western-generated resilience theories are absolute.

Tebogo’s and Zinzi’s positive adjustment was scaffolded by their extended family systems and community attachments, rather than a nuclear family system. Nuclear family systems are widely reported in Western-generated accounts of resilience (Werner, 2006). Grandmothers, teachers/lecturers, and traditional healers told stories, offered instruction, and modelled values that reflected an Africentric emphasis on respect for the self, others (living and deceased), and God, tolerance of hardship, and communal accord. The nuns (who were White) enacted Ubuntu values when they waived school fees and provided materially for Tebogo. The lecturer (also White) did the same when she paid Zinzi’s enrolment fees. Both these young people were deeply spiritual, and in Zinzi’s case, this included appreciation for her ancestors. Their spirituality buttressed them and encouraged adaptive behaviour. In each case, they were concerned with contributing to their families and communities, and this promoted self-worth and positive adjustment. Both reframed setbacks as opportunities, which sustained a sense of harmony with their life worlds and encouraged self-respect. Neither was willing to relinquish his or her dreams of a better future, even if this meant patient perseverance in the interim. All of the aforementioned aspects embody Africentricism.

When life is understood through the lens of an Africentric world view, people are considered interconnected and inherently valuable (Neblett, Hammond, Seaton, & Townsend, 2010; Utsey, Adams, & Bolden, 2000). The self is prized, but the collective more so––attachment and contribution to the communal define a competent self, but also secure support for the self (APA, 2008; Utsey, Bolden, Lanier, & Williams, 2007). In Africa, this respectful interdependence is likely to be termed Ubuntu or Botho (Dube, 2009). The emphasis on the collective encourages individuals to be rooted in a larger harmonious whole (Bujo, 2009). In this way, they are encouraged to view all life events as purposeful and meaningful and not to interpret setbacks as personal failure (Utsey et al., 2000; Utsey et al., 2007). Deep spirituality (i.e. an attachment to God and/or ancestors) further encourages intra- and inter-personal harmony and is strengthened by rituals and religious practices (Bujo, 2009; Neblett et al., 2010; Utsey et al., 2007).

Being socialized to function in Africentric ways has been reported to encourage resilience in African American youth (APA, 2008, Neblett et al., 2010) and Black South African youth (Phasha, 2010; Theron & Theron, 2010). Nevertheless, studies that explain youth resilience from a cultural perspective remain scarce and are inadequately used to inform interventions (Masten, 2011). Tebogo’s and Zinzi’s stories highlight the centrality of Africentricism to the complex, reciprocal interactions that boosted their constructive adaptation to chronic poverty. Simultaneously, they hint at how adherence to an Africentric world view can complicate resilience processes. Tebogo’s aspiration to the priesthood was obstructed by his filial duty, something he had been socialized to accept as non-negotiable. Zinzi missed classes to breastfeed her baby in an effort to comply with cultural expectations of motherhood. In these instances, allegiance to cultural expectations did not further resilience processes, thereby cautioning against blanket interpretations of how a socio-cultural ecology shapes resilience.

Lessons for school psychologists

The complexity of Tebogo and Zinzi’s stories tenders lessons for SPs—despite SPs being absent from these accounts. These lessons resulted from a narrative enquiry that relied on purposively recruited Black students’ retrospective reflections. Because of the fallibility of memory, the purposive method of sampling, and the co-constructed nature of the enquiry, these lessons are tentative (Charmaz, 2005; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Creswell, 2007). Nevertheless, they flag the importance of SPs being mindful of the complexity of resilience processes, and concomitant adjustment of practice.

First, SPs need to appreciate that resilience processes are moulded by a socio-cultural ecology. An appreciation of macro-level influences on resilience advises active, continued enquiry into how specific cultural systems shape resilience processes at micro-level and a refusal to assume understanding based on broad explanations of positive adjustment. For example, who, in a given socio-cultural ecology, would be most likely to support youth towards resilience? Within a given system, what support structures, values, beliefs, and practices would typically nurture resilience? How might cultural practices and beliefs hinder resilience processes? One way of gaining these answers is to invite students to share their stories and, in so doing, to co-construct SP knowledge of resilience (Annan & Priestly, 2011). It is possible that their insights might conflict with SPs’ personal world views or with those reported in mainstream resilience studies. Nonetheless, SPs have a duty to recognize socio-cultural capital, as reported by young people, and to mobilize this towards (continued) youth enablement.

Although not a new lesson (see Annan & Priestly, 2011; Theron & Donald, 2013; Toland & Carrigan, 2011), Tebogo’s and Zinzi’s accounts remind SPs that they are not pivotal to youths’ resilience processes and not only because SP services are often inaccessible to youth (Jimerson, Stewart, Skokut, Cardenas, & Malone, 2009). To champion resilience, SPs need to respect that positive adjustment is an ecosystemically supported process that relies on partnerships between young people and their socio-cultural ecologies, rather than principally on school-based provision of psychological services, or primarily on SP-youth partnerships. Accordingly, SPs need to educate family systems and communities about their potential to scaffold resilience and advocate protective partnerships that muster significant role players (e.g. grandparents, teachers). By engaging with school communities and extended families to develop supports for youth, SPs potentiate additional, culturally relevant ways of making their professional knowledge accessible to youth at risk.

A third lesson relates to how powerfully are teachers positioned to facilitate resilience processes. The nuns and lecturer did not share Tebogo’s and Zinzi’s ethnicity. Nevertheless, they acted in ways that were congruent with Africentric values, and in so doing, they advanced positive adjustment. SPs need to sensitize teaching staff that constructive youth adjustment can be nurtured and sustained by staff behaviour that harmonizes with students’ cultural paradigms.

Tebogo’s and Zinzi’s stories are instructive to SPs who work with youth of African descent. Africentricism was central to how their adjustment was both defined and enacted thereby vindicating the APA’s (2008) concern that clinicians, practitioners, and theorists should respect the competency-supporting potential of Africentric ways-of-being. However, reminiscent of Panter-Brick and Eggerman’s (2012) caution against simplistic interpretations of the protective value of cultural systems, at times Africentricism frustrated Tebogo’s and Zinzi’s ambitions. SPs, therefore, should familiarize themselves with Africentricism so as to better understand its complex contributions to positive adjustment. In their efforts to support African and African American students towards resilience (and possibly even students from similarly interdependent cultures), kinship systems, spirituality, and collectivist values should be prioritized when they offer students meaningful pathways to resilience. Even if SPs think they understand Africentricism, it would be helpful to collaboratively comprehend what resilience might mean through African students’ eyes, with careful attention to how this might differ from Western-generated accounts (Bottrell, 2009).

There are additional caveats to this fourth lesson. Zinzi’s spirituality included profound respect for her ancestors. Ancestral support was reported in some accounts of Black South African youth (Dass-Brailsford, 2005; Theron & Theron, 2010), but not in the APA (2008) review of African American youth resilience or in the results of empirical studies of African American youth resilience (Jones, 2007; Neblett et al., 2010; Utsey et al., 2000; Utsey et al., 2007). This cautions SPs against assuming that Africentricism is effected uniformly. Furthermore, in addition to culture being in constant flux (Theron & Donald, 2013), should African American youth or Black African youth acculturate, the centrality of Africentricism to their resilience might wane. SPs ought, therefore, not presume that being Black equals endorsement of Africentricism. Likewise, SPs must be aware that an Africentric world view can be endorsed by students who are not of African descent, particularly when they are members of collectivist socio-cultural ecologies (Neblett et al., 2010).

Conclusion

Are the pathways to resilience shared across contexts? Tebogo’s and Zinzi’s accounts partially support this thesis. Although shared, the socio-cultural ecologies in which Tebogo and Zinzi were situated nuanced the universal processes of positive adjustment. These stories prepare SPs to be perennially sceptical about theories of resilience that do not account for the influence of socio-cultural ecologies on the resilience processes of the students with whom they work. As schools increasingly serve diverse populations, SPs will need to commit to partnerships with youth and their socio-cultural ecologies that inform culturally competent understandings of resilience, as well as interventions that will advance positive adjustment in culturally sensitive ways.

Footnotes

Note

Author biography

Linda C. Theron, DEd, is a Full Professor in the School of Education Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, and a registered and experienced Educational Psychologist. Her research is focused on understanding the formal and informal processes inherent in South African youths’ resilience, particularly those challenged by poverty, HIV&AIDS, and learning difficulties (see ). She has authored and co-authored multiple publications in this regard, as well as supervised post-graduate students who explore similar resilience issues. Linda is the principal South African investigator in Dr Michael Ungar’s five-country Pathways to Resilience study. She leads the Optentia Research Focus Area’s sub-program, Southern African Pathways to Resilience. She is an Associate Editor of the South African Journal of Psychology.

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