Urban Girls Revisited: Building Strengths

2. From Urban Girls to Resilient Women: Studying Adaptation Across Development in the Context of Adversity

2 From Urban Girls to Resilient Women Studying Adaptation Across Development in the Context of Adversity Anne Shaffer, Brianna Coffino, Kristen Boelcke-Stennes, and Ann S. Masten The chapters in this volume draw our attention to many issues in the lives of urban girls in contemporary society, most notably to the variety and intensity of the stresses and challenges that these girls encounter in their daily lives. Yet many girls and young women continue to do well, and even thrive, under conditions regularly identified as perilous or stressful. In such cases, people are described as “resilient,” suggesting that they have the capacity to succeed in the face of adversity. Many striking stories of resilience have been told and reported in legends and ancient tales, movies and television shows, books and newspapers. For example, a recent television movie, Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story, featured the true story of a young woman who was left homeless and alone at the age of 15 when her mother died as a result AIDS and drug addiction. Liz went on to win a scholarship to Harvard, to study film at Columbia University, and to write a book about her life. Such compelling stories of resilience have long captured human imagination and inspired hope in other people. Although the phenomenon of resilience is not new, the systematic study of resilience did not begin until around 1970 (Luthar, in press; Masten & Powell, 2003). What researchers have learned in recent years has been somewhat surprising. Resilience is not especially rare, nor does it require superhuman powers or extreme good luck; it seems to grow out of “ordinary magic,” the common protections, resources, and opportunities available in many individuals, families, neighborhoods, and cultures 53 around the world (Masten, 2001). In this chapter, we present an overview of how researchers currently conceptualize risk and adversity, as well as competence and resilience in development. In addition, we describe findings from a 20-year longitudinal study of resilience in an urban sample, highlighting what we have learned from the girls (now women) who have participated in this research. Finally, we point out key issues for further discussion, and controversial topics that continue to raise questions in the field of resilience research. Project Competence is one of the programs whose researchers have tried to understand resilience over an extended period of time in the development of individuals (see Masten & Powell, 2003, for an overview of this project). In this chapter, we highlight some of the theory, methods, and findings of this study that are relevant to the development of resilience in the lives of the girls and women who have participated for more than 20 years. In the concluding section, we raise some of the controversial issues that complicate and enrich the study of resilience in development, in the spirit of spurring further thought and discussion of this research field. First, we begin by defining key concepts, which provide the background for our studies of resilience in Project Competence. Resilience In order for research to move beyond case accounts and stories of resilience, the concept of resilience must be defined and operationalized. Broadly speaking, resilience refers to the general phenomenon of doing well despite exposure to significant threats to development. A comprehensive study of resilience therefore requires specification on two points: first, identification of the threat to development, and, second, a judgment about adaptational success (Masten & Coatsworth, 1998). Therefore, it is important to define and measure positive adaptation and also the risks or adversities that people have encountered. A person who is doing well but has not experienced any unusual or significant adversity might be considered competent or adaptive or well-adjusted, but he or she would not yet meet the criteria for resilience. If the same person encounters some kind of major hazards and continues to do well or recovers and goes on with life, then he or she would begin to meet the definition of resilience. It is also possible for an individual to meet the criteria for resilience at one time in 54 c h a p t e r 2 life and yet experience later difficulties. Thus, resilience is not a static concept but a dynamic one; lives through time are always changing. In fact, it is interesting to study when resilience emerges and whether it endures through time and transitions. Some girls show resilience early in life and continue to develop well, with minor...