Best Practice

Developing students' resilience: What does the research say?

Pastoral issues Pupil wellbeing Character education Pedagogy research
Resilience as a life-skill and as a part of character education has come to the fore in recent years – and in an era of Covid-19, it seems more relevant than ever. Dr Stephanie Thornton looks at what the research says about this sometimes-elusive concept

Difficult and challenging environments often have a detrimental effect on developmental outcomes (Sutton et al, 2006). This is true whether the problem is associated with poverty and deprivation, with poor or abusive parenting, with families experiencing severe conflict and breakdown, with parents with mental health problems, or overcrowding – and often, teenagers experience several of these problems at the same time.

The impact can be broad: academic attainment, social development, mental health and many other factors can be negatively affected by such environments. In particular, poverty and deprivation and the negative effects of this on the family is associated with poorer developmental outcomes, including delinquency and crime (Imran et al, 2018).

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