The Social Ecology of Resilience

Download or read book The Social Ecology of Resilience written by Michael Ungar and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-10-08 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than two decades after Michael Rutter (1987) published his summary of protective processes associated with resilience, researchers continue to report definitional ambiguity in how to define and operationalize positive development under adversity. The problem has been partially the result of a dominant view of resilience as something individuals have, rather than as a process that families, schools,communities and governments facilitate. Because resilience is related to the presence of social risk factors, there is a need for an ecological interpretation of the construct that acknowledges the importance of people’s interactions with their environments. The Social Ecology of Resilience provides evidence for this ecological understanding of resilience in ways that help to resolve both definition and measurement problems.