Ingrid Schoon

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Promoting Educational Resilience Evidence from
two British Birth Cohorts

• Ingrid Schoon
• City University, London

Project funded by the ESRC Priority Networks on
Human Capital and Resilience and Gender Equality
(GeNet)
ESRC Seminar Series Youth Mentoring, Resilience,
and Social Identity Aberdeen 17th May 2007
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Resilience

• positive outcome despite the experience of
  adversity
• continued positive or effective functioning in
  adverse circumstances
• recovery after a significant trauma
• (Masten, Best Garmezy, 1990)

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What is Resilience?

• A chance event
• A personality characteristic
• A dynamic process involving a set of interactions
  between individual, social context, and
  opportunities
•  

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Identifying resilience

• Not directly measured
• Based on two judgements
• is the person doing ok?
• is there now or has their been any significant
  risk or adversity to be overcome?

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Risks and Challenges

• Trauma and neglect
• Dysfunctional families
• Psychopathology
• Biological risk (illness and disability)
• Violence and War
• Poverty

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Positive adjustment

• Subjective evaluation
• Normative outcomes
• Who decides?
• Heterogeneity of adjustment
• Context dependency
• Multiple domains of adjustment

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Educational Resilience

• Two general population samples
• British Cohorts born in 1958 and 1970
• Academic attainment above the median within these
  populations
• Socio-economic risk
• parental social class
• parental education
• material resources (housing, overcrowding,
  amenities)

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Questions for mentoring

• Is academic attainment malleable?
• If so, are there specific sensitive periods for
  intervention?
• What are factors and processes promoting
  educational resilience?
• How does educational resilience relate to other
  life domains?
• Are there long-term benefits?

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Resilience and Youth Mentoring

• A life course approach
• Life course transitions and social change
• Stability of adjustment over time
• Heterogeneity in response

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Life Course PerspectiveAdaptation in
Contextand Time
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Schoon, 2006
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• Life Course Transitions
• and Social Change

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Two National British Birth CohortsAge of Cohort
Members by Historical Events
1958 1960 1970 1975 1980 1985
1990 1995 2000
1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS)
n17,415 Birth Age 7 Age 11 Age 16 Age
23 Age 33 Age 42
1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) n16,571 Birth
Age 5 Age 10 Age 16 Age 26 Age 30
Era of liberalisation Revival of Feminist movement
Oil crisis New technologies
Onset of recession Collapse of housing
market Second wave of recession
Onset of recovery
End of baby boom
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Developmental FocusCausation, Selection, and
Cumulative Risk Effects
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Selection, Causation, and Cumulative Risk
EffectsSocial risk, academic achievement and
adult adjustment
e
a
a
a
a
f
f
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Selection, Causation, and Cumulative Risk
EffectsSocial risk, academic achievement and
adult adjustmentNCDS/BCS70
Schoon, 2006
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Protective Factors and Processes

• Individual attributes
• Characteristics of the family
• Aspects of the wider social context
• ? Heterogeneity in adjustment
• ? Differential effects

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Path model for socially advantaged /
disadvantaged cohort members at age 16 (NCDS)
Sex
Ns / ns
Parental involvement
2.56/ 1.61
Parental aspirations
Ns / 3.05
Exam Performance
3.39/ 3.14
Job Aspirations
11.85/ 4.70
Educational Motivation
Behaviour
3.87/ ns
Teacher expectations
Schoon et al., 2004
11.55/ 6.07
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Stability of adjustment over time
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Profile of AttainmentPerson-based approach
Socio-economic Risk High Low
Academic Attainment Low High
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Educational Attainment Early childhood to
adolescence
Vulnerable Resilient Low scorer
High scorer
Schoon, 2006
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Accumulated academic capability and long-term
outcomes

• Academic attainment above median in early and mid
  childhood
• ? Long-term outcomes
• Aspirations for the future
• Transition to adulthood

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Academic capability and Transition to Adulthood

• Compared to those with low academic capability
  those with high academic capability
• are more motivated at school
• have higher educational plans
• have higher occupational aspirations
• less likely to become parent before age 20

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Yet

• Compared to those with high academic capability
  from relative privileged background, those with
  high academic capability from disadvantaged
  background
• are less motivated at school
• have lower educational plans
• have lower occupational aspirations
• more likely to become parent before age 20

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Academic Capability and Educational Aspirations
Men Women
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Academic Capability and leaving school at
minimum age
Men Women
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Academic Capability and Teen Parenthood
Men Women
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Academic Resilience and Assumption of Adult Roles

• Compared to those with high academic capability
  from relative privileged background, those with
  high academic capability from disadvantaged
  background
• Are less likely to delay the step into family
  formation and parenthood
• Are less likely to obtain degree level
  qualifications

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Yet

• Traditional fast track transitions not
  necessarily associated with social exclusion or
  lower levels of well-being
• Transitions have to be understood in context
• Young people do not necessarily follow a standard
  route in their transition to adulthood
• Persisting social and gender inequalities
  determine pathways and transition strategies
• Variations within and between subgroups

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Resilience and Youth Mentoring

• Individual adjustment develops in interaction
  with wider social context
• Context is crucial for resilience
• Developmental focus
• Holistic approach
• Systematic study of underlying processes
• Creating opportunities for development
• Sustainability of programmes

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Conclusion

• Need for new perspectives
• Heterogeneity in adjustment and transition
  experiences
• Understand diversity on an individual level
• Focus on multiple, interlocking domains
• Reconceptualise definitions of successful
  adjustment versus failure

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Thank you I.Schoon_at_city.ac.uk

• Thank you
• I.Schoon_at_city.ac.uk

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