Pathways to Resilience III: Beyond Nature vs. Nurture

Abstract #307
Enhancement of Resilience for Socially Disadvantaged Elementary School Children Through the Mentoring Program Baloo and You
Presenter: Wassilis Kassis Co-Presenter: Sibylle Drexler
Abstract:
Questionnaire data, collected in 2009, from a cross-sectional study of a randomly selected sample of 5,149 8th graders from four EU-countries (Austria, Germany, Slovenia, and Spain) was used to explore the effects of family violence on resilient adolescents.Our central question was: Is a positive resilience status (being non-violent/non-depressive despite experiencing family violence) a sufficient indicator for positive social and personal development? To answer this question we computed participants’ average protective and risk factors scores and used variance analyses to compare the means of the specific protective and risk factors of resilient adolescents who had experienced family violence with those who had not.We found that a positive resilience status is not sufficient for positive social and personal development. Resilient students who had been exposed to family violence showed significantly higher levels of social and personal risks and lower levels of social and personal protective characteristics than students without family violence experiences. These findings indicate that despite a positive resilience status, the higher the experienced level of violence family, the higher the risk characteristics and the lower the protective characteristics, even for resilient students, such that high levels of family violence “wash out” young people’s chances of positive development.