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CHAIRPERSON

Dr Lin Qianhan, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.

ABSTRACT

Recently, investigations across disciplines have found that a significant number of individuals do not develop predicted problems despite being in high risk environments. The phenomenon is called ‘resilience’. The concept of resilience has aroused enormous interest since it provides a new approach: to develop the potential for those less privileged individuals. Considerable studies have investigated and identified factors that help at-risk individuals develop in adaptive and non-problematic ways. However, results showed that these protective factors are various and are located within the individual and at many levels of the individual’s social environment (e.g., family, school, and community). The differences in findings can be explained by diversity in the use of the concept of resilience, theoretical frameworks and methodological variations including employing different indicators in risk, protection and developmental outcomes (Schoon, 2006). In addition, these studies have tended to focus on western contexts, with few studies conducted in Asian contexts. Given that resilience may to some extent be context and culture specific, it is important to examine resilience in the east to complement the wealth of research in the west.

With a focus on Chinese adolescents, the present study drew on protection theory (Rutter, 1990) and person-environmental transactional processes theory (Kumpfer, 1999) and attempted to explore the factors associated with competence in the face of risk and the factors that are predictive of this competence. A series of protective factors from individual, family, school and community were investigated and whether and how individuals modify their unfavourable environments were also explored. To achieve these goals, a mixed-method approach was employed, which consists of two distinct phases: the collection and analysis of quantitative data and the collection and analysis of qualitative data.

In the first stage of the project, data were mainly collected using a quantitative survey instrument. A total of 640 (378 boys, 261 girls, and 1 case sex unspecified) Grade 11 students were recruited from four Chinese high schools and asked to complete a questionnaire comprising risk factors, protective factors, and problem behaviour variables complemented by academic achievement (GPA) data drawn from school records. Data showed that all risk factors under study except family conflict were significant predictors of problem behaviour while only three factors (low school commitment, victim of crime or bullying, and attitudes towards problem behaviour) were significant predictors of low academic achievement. Regarding protective factors, results showed opportunities for prosocial involvement from school and high school expectation of behaviour predicted both a lack of problem behaviour and academic achievement, while reward for prosocial involvement from family positively predicted academic achievement.

Six one-way MANOVAs (multivariate analysis of variance) were performed to test the differences in protective factors between resilient (high risk, high competence in behaviour and academic achievement) and non-resilient (high risk, low competence in behaviour and academic achievement) groups in different risk situations. Data showed there was no statistically significant difference on the combined protective factors between resilient and non-resilient groups regardless of the risks they met. When the results for the protective factors were considered separately, resilient individuals reported slightly higher levels of opportunities for prosocial involvement in school than non-resilient individuals in poor parental supervision and discipline and family conflict situations.

In the second stage of the project, 31 (12 male and 19 female) resilient individuals based on the quantitative results were selected and invited to participate in in-depth interview sessions. The purpose of this interview was to explore the factors which have the greatest influence on an individual’s success in behaviour and academic achievement despite high risk. Results emphasised the importance of key people in the lives of resilient individuals. In most situations, resilient individuals actively sought strategies to modify their unfavourable environments and self regulation was regarded as an important strategy. In addition, ‘having positive life goals’ was identified to be a common characteristic of the Chinese resilient adolescents.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Li Haibin is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Changing Family in Asia Cluster from 2 January 2013. Prior to the appointment, she worked in the Resilience Research Center, Dalhousie University, Canada, as a postdoctoral fellow. She also worked in the University of Sydney as a teaching fellow, where she completed her MED (Educational Psychology) and PhD (Education and Social Psychology). She received her B.Ed (Psychology) from Nanjing Normal University. Her background includes secondary school teaching, students/parents counseling, and administration in the Communist Youth League and Communist Party of China. She has more than 10 research publications in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings and one academic book. Her research interests include resilience, parenting, and self-concept. Currently, she is a reviewer of Asian Journal of Social Psychology, The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, and International Journal of Psychological Studies.

REGISTRATION

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