Resilience and Vulnerability : Adaptation in the Context of Childhood Adversities

This book explores the phenomenon of positive adaptation despite difficult life circumstances. Based on existing evidence on this topic, the editor elucidates critical considerations for future scientific research on resilience, as well as specific directions for future interventions and social policies to promote resilient functioning among at-risk children and families.

Integrated in this book are contributions from leading scientists who have each studied children's adjustment across risks common in contemporary society. Chapters in the first half of the book focus on risks emanating from the family; chapters in the second half focus on risks stemming from the wider community. All contributors have explicitly addressed a common set of core themes, including the criteria they used to judge 'resilience' within particular risk settings, the major factors that predict resilience in these settings; the limits to resilience (vulnerabilities coexisting with manifest success); and directions for interventions. In the concluding chapter, the editor integrates evidence presented through all preceding chapters to distill (a) substantive considerations for future research, and (b) salient directions for interventions and social policies, based on accumulated research knowledge.