1CHILDREN’S RISK,RESILIENCE, AND COPING

IN EXTREME SITUATIONS

JO BOYDEN

GILLIAN MANN

CHALLENGES TO

CHILDREN’S WELL-BEING

Adversity comes in many forms, as a result ofsocial or political strife, individual acts of omis-sion or commission, environmental calamities,and many other causes. Due to their youthful-ness and, specifically, their lack of social power,children and adolescents are often among themost severely affected by these adverse circum-stances. Poverty, armed conflict, forced migration,family problems, environmental degradation, andexploitation, all rising to unprecedented levels,have deepened concern internationally for theprotection of children1 and for the promotionof their health and well-being.

With the nearly universal ratification ofthe UN Convention on the Rights of the Child(CRC), the protection of children exposed toadversity has now become one of the central pri-orities of childhood interventions internation-ally. The convention provides a comprehensiveglobal framework for supporting children inboth chronic and episodic conditions of stress.Modern policy has clearly embraced the ethicaland moral view that children have a right tospecial consideration and that children exposedto exceptionally harsh situations merit the great-est concern. But on what terms do we extendsuch consideration? The logical outcome ofpublic sector austerity and the gradual disman-tling of state structures—or the absence of such

3

AUTHORS’ NOTE: We would like to express our gratitude to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, whichgenerously provided the funds that have made this chapter and the research that underpins it possible. We arealso very grateful to Jo de Berry and Andy Dawes for their constructive comments on early drafts of this chapterand especially to William Myers who contributed many important insights that challenged us to become farbolder and more creative in our thinking.

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 3

structures in the first place—is that children andtheir families and communities cannot necessar-ily count on the promises made in internationaltreaties. Moreover, due to the sheer scale of somechildhood problems—for example, children inAfrica orphaned by AIDS or those experiencingarmed political strife—affected populations arefrequently forced to rely on their own individ-ual capacities to cope. To say this is not toexonerate callous governments that choose toignore their responsibilities toward children,but to be pragmatic about the immediateprospects for large numbers of children and tofocus policy attention on the challenges that lieahead.

Although there are many structural and prac-tical obstacles to the development of effectivemeasures for children, there is evidence thatshortcomings in policy and practice are also theresult of erroneous conceptualization of prob-lems and their solutions, inadequate empiricalevidence to support specific interventions, andunquestioned assumptions about children’sdevelopment and their relative capacities andvulnerabilities. Indeed, recent research in thesocial sciences and experience in dealing withchildren in stressful situations, as will be dis-cussed in this chapter, are providing newinsights that challenge much conventionalwisdom about how to assist affected children.Because it is increasingly clear that manynotions of childhood and of childhood vulnera-bility, development, and well-being are contex-tually constructed (see Ungar, 2004), seriousdoubt is being cast on the relevance of manytraditional prescriptions for protecting children,especially interventions imposed from outsidethe child’s social and cultural context. At thesame time, new insights and ideas that could bemore helpful have not been widely disseminatedor evaluated.

Under increasingly difficult circumstancesglobally, the CRC’s demand that children’s bestinterests be a major criterion for actions con-cerning them has raised disturbing doubts andquestions regarding how to define and deliverwhat is most appropriate and effective for youngpeople. Scholars and practitioners in differentparts of the world have been trying to find outwhat effects misfortune has on children’s social,psychological, and emotional well-being and

to provide appropriate psychological and socialcare and support. However, child protectionremains an uncertain art, beset by challenges anddisputation at the methodological, conceptual,theoretical, and practical levels. The presentchapter explores some of the issues and contro-versies pertinent to a discussion of children’svulnerability, resilience, and coping in situationsof extreme hardship, highlighting problems andgaps in existing research and recommendingareas for further theoretical development andfield research. It makes the case for a dynamic,contextualized view of misfortune and suggeststhat children’s experiences of adversity aremediated by a host of internal and external fac-tors that are inseparable from the social, political,and economic contexts in which children live. Italso calls for greater attention to children’s ownunderstandings of their experience. Throughout,it asserts the need for research, policy, and pro-grammatic interventions to consider carefullythe reality of children’s lives in order to improvethe effectiveness of interventions designed toassist them.

CHILD DEVELOPMENT, “RISK”AND “RESILIENCE” IN THE LITERATURE

In this section, we examine some of the keyconcepts and theories that inform discussions ofdevelopment, well-being, risk, and resilience inchildren who are exposed to adversity. Despitethe global application of these concepts, themost systematic and influential body of infor-mation on child development and well-beingand on the factors that mediate risk andresilience during childhood is found in researchwith children in the United States and Europe.

Up until the early 1980s, scholarly under-standings of child development were dominatedby the work and ideas of Jean Piaget, whoseemphasis was on the uniformities of children’sdevelopment and the ways in which the individ-ual child makes sense of the “generic” world(Rogoff, 1990). The Piagetian model stressesthat individual children actively constructknowledge through their actions in the world.Learning takes place when a child is requiredto reconcile his or her expectations of the worldand his or her actual experience of that world.

4–•–THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 4

This constructivist approach is still impor-tant. However, in the last 25 years psychologistsand anthropologists interested in child develop-ment in diverse cultural contexts have chal-lenged Piaget’s view of the child as a solitary,independent individual whose interaction withthe world leads him or her to spontaneouslydevelop general skills and strategies that canthen be applied across logically similar prob-lems (Cole, Gay, Glick, & Sharp, 1971; Rogoff,1990). These scholars have become increasinglyattracted to the sociocultural approach of LevVygotsky (1978) and the work of later theoristssuch as Barbara Rogoff (1990), Michael Cole(1996), and Jacqueline Goodnow (1990).2 Themain tenet of this more recent perspective is thatall psychological phenomena originate throughinterpersonal interaction and hence social andcultural context provide the framework for howchildren learn to think, speak, and behave.

This focus on the importance of social inter-action to child development is reflected in themethodology implicit in Vygotskyian theory, inwhich activity, rather than the individual, is thebasic unit of analysis. “Activity” from this per-spective includes not only the task at hand butalso people, interpersonal relations, goal-directedbehavior, and shared understandings. In thisview, individuals are active agents in their ownenvironment, they engage with the world aroundthem, and in some senses, create for themselvesthe circumstances of their own development.The central aspect of this approach is the notionthat through participation in cultural activities,and with guidance from more skilled peers,siblings, and adults, children can learn to thinkand to develop new skills and more matureapproaches to problem solving. It is generallyassumed that all communities establish ways ofhelping children to build connections betweentheir current knowledge and those skills andunderstandings they are capable of acquiring(Rogoff, 1990).

This stress on the importance of activity,relationships, and interaction provides a usefulframework within which to explore the influenceof social and cultural context on child develop-ment. The ways in which children in diverse set-tings learn to respond to adversity and extremehardships are critical components of this devel-opmental process. Consciously or not, caregivers

and others structure children’s learning environ-ments to support boys and girls to acquire theknowledge, skills, and experience they need tofunction successfully in their community. Theclassification of certain experiences or circum-stances as “risky” or “dangerous” is thus not astraightforward, universal given. Boys and girlsof different ages and different abilities in differ-ent contexts will understand and make meaningof their experiences in different ways. Theseunderstandings will be influenced not only bytheir individual genetic heritage and physicaland biological maturity but also, and more par-ticularly, by the social, cultural, economic, andpolitical environment in which they live.

In assessments of the forces that underminechildren’s development and well-being, researchin the minority world tends to focus on childrenwho confront severe family and personal difficul-ties, such as recurrent ill-health, maltreatment,family separation and divorce, chronic poverty,and parental mental illness and unemployment(Garmezy & Rutter, 1983; Werner & Smith,1998). Indeed, the death of a parent is highlightedas one of the more immediately traumatizingevents for a child, linked with later psychic dis-order, notably depression. This research originatedin the field of psychopathology and respondedinitially to concerns among parents, welfare pro-fessionals, and other adults about a perceived risein childhood problems, such as school failure,juvenile crime, and attempted and actual suicideamong young people (Fraser, 1997). One of theobjectives of the research was to identify factorsin children’s lives that increase risks for suchbehaviors and, insofar as these studies aimed toserve policy, establish how structural reform orservice provision could prevent or reduce theserisks (Garmezy, 1983). Initial concerns focusedon exploring a possible correlation betweenstressful life experiences in children and a rangeof psychiatric disorders. Today, the focus formany scholars has shifted to the determination ofthe factors that enable children to remain compe-tent in the face of adversity.

Although studies of children in the minority,industrialized world focus primarily on intrafa-milial risk, research on young people in themajority world tends to address major societalevents and situations, such as armed conflict,mass murders, famine, or mass displacement.

Children’s Risk, Resilience, and Coping in Extreme Situations–•–5

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 5

Such catastrophic events are generally identifiedin this research as being “beyond the normal”range of human experience because they causedisturbance and upheaval, not just at a personaland familial level but throughout society (Ager,1996; De Vries, 1996). They threaten family andcommunity coping, destroy social and culturalinstitutions, and distort social norms and values(De Vries, 1996). There is a particular concernthat such experiences overwhelm children psy-chologically, undermining their development,coping, and future adaptation in adulthood.

Children’s individual responses to adversityhave been described in the research in terms of“risk” and “resilience.” Risk refers to variables thatincrease individuals’ likelihood of psychopathol-ogy or their susceptibility to negative developmen-tal outcomes (Goyos, 1997). Some risks are foundinternally; they result from the unique combinationof characteristics that make up an individual, suchas temperament or neurological structure. Otherrisks are external; that is, they result from environ-mental factors, such as poverty or war, whichinhibit an individual’s healthy development.Despite the apparently devastating odds, however,not all children exposed to risks and adversitiesdevelop problems later on. In the literature, thesechildren are deemed resilient. As Schaffer (1996)notes, “Whatever stresses an individual may haveencountered in early years, he or she need notforever more be at the mercy of the past. . . .children’s resilience must be acknowledged everybit as much as their vulnerability” (p. 47).

Historically, the notion of resilience enteredthe health sciences from applied physics andengineering, where it refers to the ability ofmaterials to “bounce back” from stress andresume their original shape or condition. A rub-ber ball is an example. The term seems to havebeen first used in medicine to characterize therecovery of patients from physical traumas suchas surgery or accidents. Somewhat later, it wasadopted into psychology, first for the study ofchildren of mentally ill mothers. It is now under-stood to indicate an individual’s capacity torecover from, adapt, and remain strong in theface of adversity. Hence, the literature ascribesresilience to three kinds of phenomena: (a) goodoutcomes despite high-risk status, (b) sustainedcompetence under threat, and (c) recovery fromtrauma (Masten, Best, & Garmezy, 1990).

Resilience is recognized as depending onboth individual and group strengths and is highlyinfluenced by supportive elements in the widerenvironment. These positive reinforcements inchildren’s lives are often described as “protectivefactors” or “protective processes.” They operateat different levels and through different mecha-nisms—individual, family, communal, institu-tional, and so on—and frequently correlate withand complement one another. Their effects areshown only in their interaction with risk.Although it is understood in the literature thatrisk and resilience are not constructed the sameway in all societies, it is generally accepted thatthe interaction of risk and protective factorsplays an important role in the social and psycho-logical development of boys and girls in allcontexts. The concepts of risk, resilience, andprotective factors have now come to form thebedrock of research on children who live withadversity, although, as we argue below, they arenot without their problems and limitations.

KEY MECHANISMS OF

RISK AND RESILIENCE

Research has identified several processes ormechanisms at the individual, family, and widerenvironmental levels that have been shown tohave a significant influence on risk andresilience in children. For example, a healthy,strong child is likely to be more resilient emo-tionally and psychologically than one who isphysically weak or sick. Likewise, gender hasbeen found to have an important effect on theway in which children respond to adversity(Werner & Smith, 1998), although the literaturetends not to provide consistent patterns linkinggender with coping, resilience, or vulnerability.Among other individual attributes in children,age, temperament, sense of humor, memory,reasoning, perceptual competencies, sense ofpurpose, belief in a bright future, and spiritual-ity have all been found to have a significantimpact on resilience (see, e.g., Bernard, 1995;Garbarino, 1999). These protective factorsshape to a large extent the strategies that childrenuse to manage stressful situations and to defendthemselves against painful experiences or lowself-esteem.

6–•–THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 6

Some children are better able to managestress because of disposition or temperament.Thus, protective factors such as resourcefulness,curiosity, a goal for which to live, and a need andability to help others are largely matters of tem-perament and coping style. Generally, childrenwho are able to remain hopeful about the future,are flexible and adaptable, possess problem-solving skills, and actively try to assume controlover their lives are likely to be less vulnerablethan those who passively accept the adversitythey face (Punamaki, 1987). Socially competentchildren, capable of lateral thinking and problemsolving can enhance their coping by identifyingalternatives to their current circumstances anddevising creative solutions. The capacity toengage in critical thinking can also help to shielda child from simplistic interpretations of exp-erience that are self-defeating (Garbarino,Kostelny, & Dubrow, 1991). Personal history alsoinfluences coping (Garbarino, 1999). Childrenwho have experienced approval, acceptance, andopportunities for mastery are far more likely tobe resilient than those who have been subjectedto humiliation, rejection, or failure.

The literature points not just to children’sown inner resources and competencies but alsoto their interpersonal relationships as essentialfactors mediating risk and resilience. Thus, thepresence of at least one supportive adult canhave an enormous impact on a child’s resilience(see, e.g., Ressler, Boothby, & Steinbock, 1988;Werner & Smith, 1992). Family members andsignificant others can play a major role in help-ing children interpret, “process,” and adjust to,or overcome, difficult life experiences (Dawes,1992). Acting as mentors, adults can providemodels of and reinforcement for problem solv-ing, motivation, and other coping skills(McCallin & Fozzard, 1991; Punamaki 1987;Richman & Bowen, 1997; Turton, Straker, &Mooza, 1990). Developmental psychology haslong emphasized the early bonding betweenmother and infant and overall quality of nurturewithin the primary caregiving unit as absolutelyfundamental to well-being, especially in youngerchildren. Today, however, it is increasinglyrecognized that in many societies the motheris only one of several caregivers and that, con-sequently, children’s attachments may be quitedispersed (Mann, 2001).

The centrality of emotional attachment toand support from a significant reference personis revealed in its absence. In the late 1990s inSierra Leone, children who were separated fromtheir families following abduction by the rebelforces or whose parents had been killed ordeserted them during the war faced many gravedifficulties. Without a caring guardian to taketheir side, children expressed feelings of beingbranded and were susceptible to discriminationand hostility. Fostering by extended familymembers does not always resolve their prob-lems, as one adolescent girl emphasized:

You have to be humble to the aunt and uncle andshow them respect. You must not be proud.Because you don’t have mother, you don’t havefather so you have no other choice but to be hum-ble. If you do good things you never get praised—they always shout on you and put you down.(15-year-old girl, Makeni, Sierra Leone, quotedin Boyden, Eyber, Feeny, & Scott, 2004, p. 58)

Such sentiments have been commonlyreported by separated and orphaned children innumerous situations, including Liberia (Tolfree,2004), Sudan (Vraalsen, in press), Sri Lanka(Galappatti, 2002), Tanzania (Mann, 2002),Malawi (Mann, 2003a), and elsewhere. Boysand girls in these circumstances described howdifficult their lives were without the love andprotection provided by at least one close adult.In many villages in South Sudan, childrenargued that those orphaned boys and girls wholive with extended families are just as vulnera-ble as those who live entirely without adult orfamily care (Vraalsen, in press).

Not only do supportive relationships withfamily and nonparental adults help to protectchildren from the negative effects of stressfulsituations, there is considerable evidence thatsocial support from peers can greatly enhancechildren’s resilience. This is clearly recognizedby the Maasai, who live in an area of Kenya andTanzania that is prone to severe drought andfamine. The Maasai have a strong sense of clan,family, and community identity in which sufferingis traced historically to the difficulties faced bythe Maasai as a people. Traditional Maasai riskmanagement strategies reflect a close familiaritywith hunger and other hardships, such that

Children’s Risk, Resilience, and Coping in Extreme Situations–•–7

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 7

young morans (teenage boys who are learningto become warriors) must always travel and eatin pairs for mutual support and protection(Boyden et al., 2004). In this context, boys learnfrom a young age not only the importance ofteamwork and cooperation but also how to pro-vide material, emotional, and physical assis-tance to peers. In addition to the confidence theybuild in their own ability to confront future chal-lenges, they learn to trust that they are not aloneand that others can assist them in times of need.

Positive peer relationships provide childrenwith an arena of support outside the family inwhich they can experiment, develop attitudes,skills, and values, and learn to share, help, andnurture one another. These relationships becomeespecially important during middle childhoodand adolescence and both mitigate the negativeeffects of adversity and contribute to a child’ssense of self-esteem. This process may in turnenhance the development of other protectivefactors, such as a sense of competence and anability to form other meaningful relationships,empathize, and feel a sense of belonging. Inshort, friendships provide children, like adults,with opportunities to be themselves and to feelgood about who they are—processes that helpto build resilience. This truth was evident inresearch with children affected by HIV/AIDS inMalawi, where girls between the ages of 8 and14 years described the opportunity to sit withfriends and “share secrets” as one that made themfeel “strong” and “less alone” (Mann, 2003a).

Neighborhoods and institutions such asschools and organized community groups cansupplement protective factors at the individualand family levels by providing a supportivecontext for children. In industrialized countries,the state is fundamental in this regard, aidingchildren through a range of interventions,including food subsidies, housing, and socialinsurance. Today, specialized state-run insti-tutions of childhood—child care and leisurecenters, schools, and so on—complement thetraditional roles and functions of the family.During crises, they may replace family alto-gether. In contrast, most poor countries do nothave the resources for widespread state supportto communities, families, or children living inadversity. Where high birth rates, early mortality,and educational wastage are pressing problems,

birth spacing, health, and education servicestake priority over social services and welfarepolicies. In this context, it is often a bonus ifgovernment assistance programs exist at all.Where they do, they frequently suffer heavilyfrom underinvestment, poor outreach, hightransaction costs, or corruption.

Experience demonstrates that in the absenceof state intervention, child protection oftenrelies on the mobilization efforts of civil societyand participation from various communitygroups. These informal protective processesmay include collective activities (such as jointlabor on community projects or labor exchangeson farms) and institutional support (e.g., creditsupplied by money lenders, remedies offeredby traditional healers, or spiritual guidanceprovided by religious officials).

Sometimes crisis itself can lead to the devel-opment of protective processes that enhanceresilience in children. In Milange, Mozambique,following the devastation of war, reconciliationand forgiveness was achieved by acknowledgingand celebrating the return of former combatants,who put the war behind them by partaking inceremonies and confessionals (Gibbs, 1994).Reconstruction was achieved through the man-agement of everyday activities such as buildinghouses and planting fields in which children—including former child combatants—played anintegral role. The church and local healers playeda major part in the reconstruction, focusing andreaffirming the process. On the other hand, inimpoverished and AIDS-affected areas of south-ern Kenya, assistance for struggling families fromthe village clan committee and other sources issaid to be on the decline. Whereas once thereexisted a broad network of neighbors and othervillage members to ensure that no children wouldgo hungry, nowadays, individual or familial self-help strategies are favored over collective ones.One elderly woman recalled how at one time“a child would belong to the community.” This isno longer the case, she said (Boyden et al., 2004).

THE LIMITATIONS

OF EXISTING RESEARCH

Much of the literature on risk and resilience inchildhood is based on longitudinal studies that

8–•–THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 8

cover the life span well into adulthood andamplify important individual differencesbetween children. As such, that literature hasmade a major contribution to our understandingof the personal, familial, and broader environ-mental influences on children’s well-being anddevelopment in adverse situations. In so doing,it has vital implications for children throughoutthe world and should be widely disseminatedamong practitioners and policymakers. However,even after decades of learning and experience inthis field in some countries, we still do not knowthe extent to which these protective factors areuniversal across cultures. We also do not knowenough about the effects on children of expo-sure to adversities of different kinds or the waysin which children respond to and deal with theseexperiences. A review of the existing researchevidence on childhood adversity indicates sev-eral major shortcomings. Before commencinga discussion of some of the most significantdebates and issues associated with the topic, wehighlight the problems with existing research.

Limitations of Terminology. First3, although theidea of resilience has for some purposes provenitself a useful way of imaging human ability tothrive in the face of adversity, it suffers severalimportant limitations, both conceptual and cul-tural. Early writers employing the term consci-entiously proposed it not as an explanation butas a temporary convenience until such time asscientific theories of natural human resistance topsychological stress could be properly formu-lated (Anthony, 1987). With time, however, thismakeshift construct gradually came to betreated as confirmed fact by all but a few theo-retical researchers. A fully featured scientifictheory to explain unexpectedly positive humanresponse to adversity still lies in the future.

As might be expected of an impressionisticmetaphor imported into psychology from thenatural sciences, it has been impossible todefine resilience with the precision necessary toconfirm it through rigorous scientific research.A variety of sometimes incompatible conceptsand definitions are currently in use. The termwas at first commonly characterized as a traitof individuals—children were classified as“vulnerable” or “resilient”—and much of thelay literature is still in that vein. However, as

research and careful reflection (Luthar &Cicchetti, 2000; Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker,2000) demonstrated this concept to be unten-able, the definitional focus became both morecollective, centered on families and other group-ings and more abstract, portraying resilience asa “dynamic developmental process” (Yates,Egeland, & Sroufe, 2003) or the transactionbetween individuals and their environment. Itseems increasingly clear that resilience cannotbe directly observed and measured and, in fact,is only inferred from observations based on therelated constructs of risk and “positive adapta-tion” (Luthar, 2003).

This raises the question of whether anythinglike resilience actually exists in nature; perhapsit is only a conceptual artifact. There is no ques-tion that some children submitted to severestress do survive better than expected, but it isnot clear that one needs a mediating factor suchas resilience to explain it. This doubt is now amatter of debate. Some researchers have sug-gested that the issue can be tested by statisticallysorting the direct effects of “protective” vari-ables from interactions that might suggest amediating factor (i.e., resilience). At least someanalysis of this type finds that the direct, con-text-specific effects of protective factors canexplain virtually all positive adaptation, whichsuggests that the notion of a general quality ofresilience is superfluous (Wyman, 2003). Moreanalysis of this type is required, but some initialfindings imply that resilience is perhaps an ideawe do not need to explain why some childrenthrive in harsh conditions and others do not.

Limited Assumptions. Second, ideas ofresilience call on subthemes taken for granted incontemporary Europe and North America thatare not so readily accepted by equally sophisti-cated intellectual systems elsewhere, includ-ing in science. A good example is the concept ofself. From early on, resilience was conceived ascompletely or partially involving self-integrationor self-organization. This, of course, requiressome sort of self to be integrated or organized,perhaps the sort of core being envisaged in 20th-century Freudian or humanistic approaches topsychology. The problem is that selfhood hasnever been shown to exist apart from the con-struct of it, and other intellectually sophisticated

Children’s Risk, Resilience, and Coping in Extreme Situations–•–9

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 9

cultures and systematic philosophies—such asBuddhism and much of Hinduism, for example—deny that self really exists. They do not denythat we experience a sense of inner self, but theyconsider that experience to be the most funda-mental of all human illusions. There is no objectivereason to consider the assertion of independentselfhood more rational than the assertion ofno-self. Interestingly, some of today’s leadingresearchers in neurology and evolutionary psy-chology hold to one or another version of theview that the idea of self is a sort of interpretiveillusion compiled from a wide variety of neuro-logical stimuli, perhaps originating from theentire body rather than the brain alone.

The idea of risk, as used in much of the risk-and-resilience literature, is also culturally andnormatively loaded, as is the notion of compe-tence, which is seen as the basis for resilience byhighly influential researchers such as Garmezyand Masten. Even as used in the social scienceliterature with a certain amount of care, theseare not terms that always enjoy easy transitbetween cultural contexts. Even the negativeconceptualization of adversity as hostile factorsexogenous to the individual—the essential set-ting for the emergence of resilience—isregarded by a sizable number of non-Westerncultures and philosophies as partial, short-sighted, and naive. Instead, they see connectionsbetween what we perceive and what we create.Rogoff (2003) notes that this objection is a dif-ficult point for Westerners, including manysocial scientists, because schemes “separatingthe individual and the world are so pervasive inthe social sciences that we have difficulty find-ing other ways to represent our ideas” (p. 49).

Culture is not an entity that influences individuals.Instead, people contribute to the creation of cul-tural processes and cultural processes contributeto the creation of people. Thus, individual and cul-tural processes are mutually constituting ratherthan defined separately from each other. (p. 51)

As we argue below, there is a case to be madethat adversity is as much a matter of perceptionas of situational fact, and many societies delib-erately create painful and even potentially dan-gerous situations for children—such as in somerites of passage or forms of apprenticeship—to

promote their development by teaching them toembrace discomfort as opportunity rather thanturning it into adversity. That approach puzzlesand horrifies some individuals, who might con-sider it abuse rather than nurture. The issue isnot who is right or wrong, of course, but thedegree to which the notion of resilience calls onelements of contemporary Western culture notnecessarily shared elsewhere, including in thesciences. Although we use the term resiliencehere in recognition of its utility as a device forindicating a state that many of us recognize intu-itively, we do not regard it as a sound theoreticalconstruct. Indeed, we maintain that resiliencemay, following further enquiry, appear to be asensible construct only in certain very limitedcultural and intellectual contexts.

Limited Scholarship. A third difficulty with therisk-and-resilience research is that scholarshipin this field has been limited largely to childrenand childhood in the industrialized, minorityworld. Some scholars have gone to considerablelengths in these studies to include children fromdiverse cultural and economic backgrounds.Nevertheless, inherent in much of the literatureon risk and resilience is a view of childhood thatis informed by the context of white middle-classfamily life, not necessarily by the very differentrealities that shape the lives of children in otherparts of the world. The underlying assumption isthat children in the minority world have grownup the “right way” and that children everywhereshould be raised in the same manner—that is, inthe nuclear family, with two parents, withoutsocial or economic responsibility, and so on.The implication of this assumption is that thiscontext is the benchmark against which“healthy” childhood is measured. However,ethnographic evidence from diverse culturessuggests that there is no single, uniformapproach to child rearing. Multiple develop-mental pathways exist throughout the world.In accordance with the insights first advancedby Vygotsky (1978), many now recognize thatthe well-being of children is influenced bythe material, social, and cultural aspects of thespecific environment in which they live, despitewhat the literature presumes.

The focus of this literature on the minorityworld and on the kinds of adversities thought

10–•–THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 10

to prevail in industrialized countries limits itsexplanatory scope. As noted, the most system-atic information currently available tends to dealwith often chronic personal and family prob-lems that occur within the private domain of thehome. Hence, despite the overwhelming evidenceconcerning the structural causes of most child-hood adversities, the most extensive research onrisk in childhood concerns far more immediateand personal circumstances, in particular loss ofand separation from parents, especially mothers.In the majority world, children tend to face addi-tional and sometimes far greater threats to theirwell-being that are not adequately addressedin this literature. For example, large numbersof children throughout the globe are routinelyexposed to major societal catastrophes that affectentire communities, such as famine, forced dis-placement, and “ethnic cleansing.” Children’sresponses to these and other adverse situationshave been underreported in the literature and arenot well understood generally.

Limited Interpretation. Finally, there is the addi-tional problem that much of what we knowabout childhood experience from the research isbased on adult interpretation and supposition.Most of the studies on children’s vulnerabilityand resilience draw on researchers’ precon-ceived ideas about what constitutes adversityor risk for children. Often, adults (parents,teachers, and others who are close to children)are used as respondents. The result is that, inmany cases, we do not have accurate informa-tion on children’s own perceptions. This is prob-lematic given that there is emerging evidencethat children do not share the same understand-ing of risk and adversity as do adults. The priv-ileging of adult perceptions over children’sexperiences has sometimes meant that, in prac-tice, resilience is conceived of more as theabsence of pathology rather than the presenceof personal agency in children. Thus, in many ofthe studies of war-affected and displacedchildren, resilience is tantamount to the lack oftrauma or psychiatric disorder; the notion thatchildren’s own resourcefulness may promotetheir mental health is, in many cases, entirelyforeign. In contrast, the psychological literaturedoes envision children’s personal attributes ascontributing significantly to resilience, embracing

the idea of children as resourceful. Nevertheless,much of the discussion of children’s compe-tence in practice focuses on the rather passivenotion of protective factors, not the idea ofchildren actively managing and even in someinstances improving their situation.

THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL

CAUSES OF RISK AND RESILIENCE

The factors that determine whether and howa person comes to experience adversity operateat numerous levels. Practical experience hasshown us that there are significant disparitiesbetween groups and categories of children interms of their exposure to risk and survival, cop-ing, and well-being and that such disparitiesnormally have structural causes relating to dis-crepancies in social power. Often, these struc-tural threats at the macro level are transmittedthrough successive generations of a population,community, or family and are seldom actuallywithin the control of the individual they affect.Caste is one structural configuration that perma-nently disadvantages some people, for the sta-tus, classification, and indeed, much of the fateof over 100 million dalits (“untouchables”) inIndia is determined at conception and cannot bechanged even after death. As a child grows up,this structural vulnerability is then compoundedif the child happens to be a girl (and thereby suf-fers intrahousehold inequities), lives in a ruralarea (with limited or no access to land and basicservices), and has a disability (attracting socialstigma). Although each of these factors is nodoubt a hindrance in terms of isolation, it isthrough their interaction and accumulationwithin the life of an individual child that he orshe is rendered susceptible to developmentaldisruption and psychological, social, or emo-tional distress.

Structural disadvantage also applies at themicro level. Children who are distinguishedby social attributes such as gender, ethnicity, orreligion and by personal attributes such as tem-perament, physique, or cognitive ability tend tobe valued and treated very differently withinfamilies and communities. Gender is one of themost striking and enduring examples of differ-ence within childhood. Girls are generally

Children’s Risk, Resilience, and Coping in Extreme Situations–•–11

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 11

stronger biologically than boys, as evidenced bytheir higher survival rates after birth. Yet manysocieties have powerful gender preferences, andthese preferences have differential effects on thelife chances and well-being of boys and girls.In plough agriculture in Asia and Europe, forexample, there is an apparent partiality towardboys (Robertson, 1991) because daughters haveto be given dowries and are “lost” to parents asa support in old age. In African hoe agriculture,on the other hand, families have good produc-tive as well as reproductive reasons to welcomegirls and good political reasons (such as perpet-uation of a lineage) to want boys. In mostsocieties where there are major distinctions,baby and young girls are at far greater risk ofexposure to adversity than boys. But as childrengrow older, less is known about the nature andinfluence of the risks faced by both genders.There is an assumption in the literature that theburdens, deprivations, and dangers of girlhoodare more extreme, but this assumption remainsto be proven. We simply do not know enoughabout how boys and girls of different ages indifferent social, political, and cultural contextsexperience and interpret risk.

During times of trouble, distinctions basedon gender, ethnicity, and physical ability grow,sometimes with very serious consequences forchildren who are the least valued. For example,perpetuity of the social group is very importantin many contexts of enduring hardship wheremutual interdependence is strong and the indi-vidual cannot survive alone. In such settings,durability of the family group is commonly agreater priority than the relative well-being ofindividual offspring. Children in certain cate-gories may be considered surplus to require-ments and abandoned (Engle, Castle, & Menon,1996). Recent research among displacedfamilies in the Western Upper Nile region ofSudan has shown that disabled children aremore likely than their able-bodied peers andsiblings to die as a result of being left behindwhen families are forced to flee their villages(Vraalsen, in press). Likewise, in other extremesituations, children may be considered a goodthat can be exchanged or traded for income orused to forge links with political or economicallies. This practice is not uncommon in parts ofBurma, where desperate families may receive

money in exchange for “lending” girls as youngas 12 to “employers” in Thailand. Such girlsoften end up working in the sex industry (Mann,2000). Indeed, gender preference directlyaffects survival in some settings. In South Asia,gender discrimination is a major determinantof demographic distortion, with fewer thanexpected females in the population relative tomales (Drèze & Sen, 1995). This pattern islinked to female infanticide, the abortion offemale fetuses, and gender discrepancies in theallocation of food and health care.

Differences between groups of childrenoften have explicitly political origins. Indeed,children’s rights advocates have for some timebeen gathering evidence pointing to the politicalcauses of much childhood deprivation andsuffering. They have shown that the State canimperil children just as much as protect and nur-ture them, sometimes under the guise of protec-tion. They have uncovered instances not just ofinaction by the State but, more seriously, of actsof commission. Often, the State actively victim-izes certain categories of children, as in the caseof racist policies that discriminate against spe-cific religious, cultural, or ethnic groups in theprovision of services, access to resources, andso on. Hence, historically, apartheid policies inSouth Africa produced major disparities amongethnic groups in terms of youth and child mor-bidity and mortality, literacy, employment,personal security, and civil and political rights.

Variations in patterns of resilience andcoping at the group level are also a functionof cultural beliefs about childhood and childdevelopment. As indicated, ethnographic evi-dence from several parts of the world and recentresearch in the tradition of cultural psychologysuggest that childhood is a diverse, shiftingcategory shaped by cultural and social context.Thus, although it may be true that all childrenhave certain basic needs and vulnerabilities ina very general sense, differentiation betweensocieties in definitions of childhood and under-standings of and approaches to child develop-ment produce very real differences in termsof children’s experiences, attitudes, and behav-ior (Bronfenbrenner, 1986, 1996; Cole, 1992;Wilson, 1998; Woodhead, 1998, p. 17).4 Particularsocieties have their own ideas about the capaci-ties and vulnerabilities of children, the ways in

12–•–THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 12

which they learn and develop, and those thingsthat are good and bad for them. These ideasaffect approaches to child socialization, learning,discipline, and protection and, hence, to a signif-icant degree, circumscribe children’s adaptation,resilience, and coping (Dawes & Donald, 1994;Super & Harkness, 1986; Woodhead, 1998).In other words, the social arrangements, childdevelopment goals, and child-rearing practicesof the communities in which children live playa fundamental part in determining the differentcapabilities and susceptibilities that childrendevelop.

Selective neglect in the family, discrimina-tion in the community, political oppression innational government, and pronounced inequityin international relations are all societal factorsundermining children’s well-being and develop-ment that policymakers have the power to dosomething about. The question is how to identifywhich groups and categories of children are themost susceptible and to find ways both of reduc-ing risk among them and providing support toaffected children. The problem is that researchon risk and resilience in children seldom revealsgroup distinctions in a meaningful way that canbe addressed by policy. On the other hand, poli-cymakers are often reluctant to engage withissues that have political, social, or culturalroots, preferring to depoliticize adversity bydefining it as a problem of family or individualpathology. The concern, then, is how researchcan more effectively capture these kinds of dis-tinctions between groups and categories ofchildren and establish their impact on children’swell-being. Equally important is to identify thekinds of policies and practice that will preventsuch inequities between groups of children.

BEYOND TRAUMA:THE SOCIAL EFFECTS OF ADVERSITY

We have suggested that there is a focus amongsome scholars on the psychological and emo-tional effects of highly stressful experiences. Thisconcern with catastrophic events and situationsis surely appropriate given their pernicious impacton individuals and societies throughout theworld. Many label the most stressful experiences“traumatic” and link them with one specific

diagnostic category—namely, posttraumaticstress disorder (PTSD). Use of the term traumais very conscious in this context, for it indicatesan emotional wound or shock resulting fromexposure to an event or situation that causessubstantial, lasting damage to the psychologicaldevelopment of a person, often leading to neu-rosis. PTSD was first identified as a syndromein American veterans of the Vietnam War andhas subsequently been identified by the WorldHealth Organization (WHO, 1992) as the mostsevere psychiatric disorder and primary stressresulting from a catastrophe.

Many find the concept of trauma useful inthat it highlights how major disasters havepotential to undermine children and adults psy-chologically (see also Solomon & Laufer’swork on Israeli children in Chapter 14 of thisvolume). However, as we have suggested, thereare numerous conceptual and methodologicalproblems concerning the definition and mea-surement of life events and of psychiatric dis-orders (Garmezy & Rutter, 1983). For example,it is surprising to learn that of those childrenwho suffer serious or prolonged psychologicalor emotional distress in conflict zones, a signif-icant proportion have not experienced a majormisfortune despite the catastrophic circum-stances in which they live (Ressler, Tortorici, &Marcelino, 1992). Sometimes the most devastat-ing situations are those involving insidioushardships and deprivations, such as constanthumiliation, social isolation, or poverty relatedto loss of livelihood. For instance, in Dar esSalaam, Congolese refugee children betweenthe ages of 7 and 13 years reported that discrim-ination and public humiliation by Tanzanianadults and children was so distressing for themthat they would often prefer to remain at homethan to endure the taunts of neighbors and others(Mann, 2003b). These ongoing stressors canimpair the coping resources of children as wellas the capacity of the community to support andprotect those who care for them. Researcherslooking for traumatic responses to situationsidentified in advance as highly stressful couldmiss such important subtleties.

As it happens, there has been much contro-versy surrounding disorders such as PTSD. Anumber of mental health experts do not acceptPTSD as a valid diagnostic category in relation

Children’s Risk, Resilience, and Coping in Extreme Situations–•–13

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 13

to children in particular. Some point out thatit is misapplied in many situations of chronicadversity where children continue to be exposedto stress. There is nothing “posttraumatic” abouttheir experiences. Some also argue that the symp-toms associated with the syndrome do not onlyoccur in response to major stressful life events(Richman, 1993). Others say that symptomscharacteristic of the syndrome such as bed-wettingand nightmares do not constitute “sickness” but anormal physiological reaction to shock. Stillothers highlight that these kinds of medicalizedaccounts of human responses to misfortunedetract from the political, economic, and socialnature of much of the adversity in the worldtoday (Bracken, Giller, & Summerfield, 1995).They are critical of medical approaches thatemphasize individual psychopathology and indi-vidualized therapeutic care in clinical settings.

In fact, whatever one’s views on PTSD, itis evident that this kind of diagnosis overlooksmany important aspects of human experienceduring times of great hardship. Take, forexample, the cultural bereavement experiencedby many of those who are forcibly displaced byarmed conflict or civil strife (Eisenbruch, 1991).Research by Armstrong, Boyden, Galappatti,and Hart (2004) with Tamil children aged 9 to16 in the east of Sri Lanka has revealed a broadarray of responses to the adverse conditionsin which they live. These boys and girls haveexperienced displacement, armed violence, andimpoverishment, loss of access to education andhealth care, and many other war-related risks.One of the key criteria of well-being distin-guished by these children was “moving wellwith people,” an expression used very positivelywith reference to a person who is hospitable,kind, polite, and generally relates well to others.The children are aware that not all their peersexperience well-being and that there are boysand girls in their midst who in their view sufferimpaired social and cognitive functioning. Asthey see it, impaired social functioning isexpressed mainly in terms of solitary, antisocialbehavior, symbolized by a desire to be leftalone; unwillingness to play; lack of interest in,or interaction with, friends; and an inability toshow affection. Cognitive functioning is judgedin relation to enthusiasm for learning and sports,and attendance and performance at school.

These Tamil children explained their mostfrequent and distressing response to adversityas “thinking too much,” a condition that can inmore severe cases cause constant and intenseheadaches or heart pain. Most commonly, theyassociated this condition with the loss, disap-pearance, or death of a loved one or with fear ofabduction and forced recruitment into the military.Other fears and anxieties—about snakebites, theproximity of armed military personnel, elephantattacks, and drowning—were similarly perva-sive but seemingly less intense and did notappear to result in “thinking too much” or asomatic effect. During adversity, anxieties andfears of this nature can play a very importantpart in children’s vulnerability as much as intheir coping and resilience yet do not figure inPTSD diagnoses. Similarly, such a diagnosissays very little about children’s actual function-ing on a daily basis. In the Tamil areas of SriLanka affected by conflict, social trust outsidethe immediate family has been largely destroyedbecause neighbors have developed opposingloyalties and inform on each other to ensuretheir own survival. Children have few social orinstitutional resources to turn to for support,and mothers stand out as one of the few sourcesof love and protection for the young. Tamilchildren in the East have developed a whole hostof coping mechanisms to deal with this corro-sive social environment and a range of strategiesto avoid abduction and other risks. Theseinclude limiting friendships to a few close andtrusted peers (often cousins), restricting socialvisits to nearby houses, avoiding family conflictwhenever possible, not discussing family prob-lems with neighbors, being careful not to attractattention in school, staying away from schooland in homes during the day; and sleeping in theforest at night. Such strategies are crucial topersonal functioning.

Insofar as children in middle childhoodand adolescence tend to attach a great deal ofsignificance to personal relationships, especiallyto friendships with peers; social approval andacceptance among peers and in the communityat large are vital factors in their well-being. It istherefore not surprising to learn that for childrenof this age, the experience of adversity is verymuch mediated by its effects on their socialworld. In other words, children gauge the

14–•–THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 14

impacts of adversity not just in terms of psychicpathology but through the constraints it puts ontheir social networks. Unfortunately, it tran-spires that children who confront adversity areoften denigrated and excluded by others, as wasevident in a study of child poverty in India,Belarus, Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Bolivia(Boyden et al., 2004). That study revealed thatthe way in which poverty undermines an indi-vidual’s social interactions and relationshipswith others can be far more important tochildren than having to go without food or othercommodities. Thus, in rural Bolivia, despiteknowing full well that chronic shortages ofwater have a significant effect on livelihoodsand on the survival and health of both humansand livestock, children highlighted above all thehumiliation of being unable to wash and there-fore being labeled smelly, dirty, and poor. Thesechildren acknowledged that frequently they arethemselves the main instigators of abusesdirected at others due to their poverty. In fact,one of the worst consequences of being thoughtof as “poor” is the associated shame, socialexclusion, and susceptibility to teasing, bully-ing, and humiliation by peers.

CHILDHOOD ADVERSITY

CONTEXTUALLY DEFINED

One of the strongest criticisms of universali-zed psychiatric diagnoses such as PTSD is thatthey seriously underestimate the differencesbetween cultural groups in understandings ofand responses to stressful events (Bracken et al.,1995). Undoubtedly, humans have a limitedrepertoire of responses to stressful life events,and feelings and symptoms will recur acrosssocial and cultural boundaries (Parker, 1996).Similarly, intelligence, temperament, good par-enting, and family relationships early in lifeappear to be important contributors to resiliencein all cultures and contexts. Nevertheless,children’s worldview and mental health are verymuch influenced by local meanings given tomisfortune. As we have suggested, these mean-ings in turn depend on other concepts—forexample, ideas about causality in adversity,well-being, sickness, healing, personhood, iden-tity, and the like (Bit, 1991; Bracken, 1998; Le

Vine, 1999; Parker, 1996; Shweder & Bourne,1982; Summerfield, 1991, 1998). As critics ofuniversalized diagnostic categories argue, eventhough certain symptoms of acute distress mayoccur across cultures and social groups, thisdoes not suggest that their meaning is the samein all settings (Bracken et al., 1995; Parker,1996). Thus, meaning is a profoundly importantmediating factor in children’s experiences ofadversity, and yet it has been largely ignored inthe literature. Indeed, it is our contention thathow children respond to adversity cannot beunderstood without reference to the social,cultural, economic, and moral meanings givento such experiences in the contexts they inhabit.

The contextual nature of adversity is illus-trated by research on child abuse and neglectacross cultures conducted over 20 years ago byJill Korbin (1981), an anthropologist. Korbincites examples of practices such as punishments(severe beatings) to impress a child with thenecessity of adherence to cultural rules andharsh initiation rites (genital operations, depri-vation of food and sleep, and induced bleeding)that to many outsiders would most likely appearabusive. Indeed, some of these practices havebeen denounced by children’s rights advocatesas abhorrent. But Korbin goes on to make thesobering point that many practices in the minor-ity world that are accepted as “normal,” such asisolating infants and small children in rooms orbeds of their own at night or allowing them tocry without immediately attending to theirneeds or desires are at odds with the child-rearing philosophies of most cultures, for whomsuch behaviors are likewise considered just as“abusive.”5

Even the meaning of death varies signifi-cantly, depending on cultural and religiousviews about whether human existence is irrevo-cably constrained by the live body, which in turnhinges on ideas about the soul, reincarnation,ancestral spirits, and so on. Views about deathand well-being in many parts of the world arebuilt on the notion of congruence, not merelyin the functioning of mind and body but alsobetween the human, natural, and spirit worlds.Any or all of these dimensions may play a partin explanations of the cause of misfortune, defi-nitions of suffering, and ways of dealing withdistress. In such systems, illness and adversity

Children’s Risk, Resilience, and Coping in Extreme Situations–•–15

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 15

are often caused by the intervention of powerfulsocial, natural, and supernatural agents rather thanindividual pathology. Well-being is dependenton, and vulnerable to, the feelings, wishes, andactions of others, including spirits and deadancestors (Lock & Scheper-Hughes, 1990). Hence,sickness is often portrayed as being caused by thewitchcraft of neighbors, the forces of nature, ordeities. On the other hand, spiritual and super-natural entities may also be perceived as provid-ing protection for children and, indeed, aresometimes thought to be more effective in thisregard than individual parental behavior or familycircumstances (Engle et al., 1996). These kindsof beliefs sometimes account for approaches tochild protection that families regard as appropri-ate, adaptive, and beneficial but that outsiders per-ceive as risky or neglectful behavior.

For example, among the Acholi in Gulu,northern Uganda, the life of an individual whohas died is said to continue in the world ofancestral spirits. Many young people in the areahave been abducted and made to fight by theLord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Symptoms ofsevere emotional and psychological distress inyoung former combatants are taken to indicatethat they are cen, “mad,” and have become pos-sessed by the spirits of the people they havekilled (Boyden, 2002; Jareg & Falk, 1999).Former child combatants are thought of as insome way “contaminated,” and it is held that the“spirit might come out at any time,” influencingthe person who has been possessed to behaveunpredictably or uncontrollably and possiblyeven to harm others. However, at the sametime, because so many of these children wereabducted and forcibly recruited, there is a strongwill to forgive, reintegrate, and reconcile. Thatsaid, before young former abductees areaccepted back into their families and communi-ties, proof is required that they are remorsefulabout acts of violence they have committed anddetermined to mend their ways. Acceptancetends to be conditional on the performance ofrites of cleansing and atonement in which thespirit leaves the body of the possessed person.It has been observed that in many cases theseyoung people appear calmer and more con-trolled following reintegration.

To give another example, a study byRousseau, Said, Gagné, and Bibeau (1998) of

unaccompanied Somali boys in exile in Canadaproduced quite unexpected findings. These boyswere found to be far more resilient than antici-pated, given the many severe hardships that theyhad experienced. Their resilience and copingwas attributed to the fact that they had alreadybecome accustomed to long periods of separa-tion from their families and communities priorto exile. This familiarity was due to the tradi-tional pastoral nomadic practice of sendingyoung boys away to tend herds, a practice thatenables boys to learn self-sufficiency and auton-omy and to acquire status in their communitiesas proto-adults. Hence, in this particular con-text, exile and separation from family wereviewed not as forms of deprivation or loss but ashaving certain positive attributes. This evidencesuggests that the degree to which stressful situ-ations can be defined objectively as “traumatic”or “outside the realm of normal human experi-ence” is limited.

Phinney (1996) argues that the degree ofpsychological mastery children have in difficultsituations to a significant extent reflects thedegree to which a culture endorses active man-agement of adversity by encouraging children todevelop skills in communication, problem solv-ing, and self-management of behavior. Thus,some societies think of misfortune as a matter ofchance or fate, passively accepting and succumb-ing to events. Others actively train children tobecome resilient and to cope with unpredictableand painful situations. In the latter case, childrenmay be encouraged to engage in activities thatpose at least moderate risk to health and safety,with the aim of developing physical strength,endurance, confidence, dexterity, and self-discipline. Inuit children in Canada, for example,are taught to deal with a dangerous and oftenunpredictable Arctic environment, continuouslytested in all spheres of knowledge and compe-tence relating to the world around them andexpected to experiment with uncertainty anddanger (Briggs, 1986). They learn that the worldis made up of problems to be solved: The abilityto discover these problems, observe themactively and accurately, and analyze the implica-tions of exposure to hazardous situations is ahighly valued quality in Inuit society. In someAfrican societies, learning to be resilient is insti-tutionalized in formal rites of passage. For a

16–•–THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 16

male, initiation into adulthood may involvecircumcision or a trial of strength, in which boysbecome men by passing exacting tests of perfor-mance in combat, survival, economic pursuits,and procreativity (Gilmore, 1990).

From this research and experience, it isapparent that vulnerability, resilience, and cop-ing in children are not merely functions ofhealth, sickness, or pathological behavioralreactions but also of beliefs and values (Gibbs,1994; Masten et al., 1990). Dealing with dis-tressing experiences involves making sense ofthose experiences; assimilating and processingfear, grief, or anger; and finding ways of adapt-ing to, overcoming, or removing difficulties.Although these may be intensely personalprocesses, individuals engage with misfortunenot as isolated beings but in socially mediatedways that are shared (Bracken, 1998; Kleinman& Kleinman, 1991; Reynolds-White, 1998).Crisis, suffering, grief, healing, and loss are allpatterned by the social and cultural meaningsthey manifest. Hence,

the “developmental appropriateness” of children’sexperiences, the “harmfulness” or “benefits” oftheir environment cannot be separated from thecultural context in which they are developing, thevalues and goals that inform their lives and theirprior experiences of learning skills and ways ofthinking. (Woodhead, 1998, p. 13)

Children grow and flourish in a whole host ofdifferent environments and under a whole vari-ety of circumstances, and what is adaptive inchild development is very much a product ofthese specific settings (Dawes & Donald, 1994).

CHILDREN’S EXPERIENCES: INDIRECT

AND COMPLEX EFFECTS ON WELL-BEING

There is a view, prevalent in much of the globaldiscourse surrounding child development, childprotection, and children’s rights, that exposureto misfortune has a direct and automatic delete-rious effect on children’s development and well-being. We have noted that it is common forchildren so exposed to be regarded as trau-matized. This outlook is particularly strong inthe literature on war-affected children and is

applied especially to children in early childhood,which is thought to be the most critical period ofdevelopment, when children are most suscepti-ble to harm that has long-term consequences(Schaffer, 2000).

Such a perspective seems, on the surface atleast, quite compelling, for as adults, we tend tohold the commonsense view of children (espe-cially young children) as frail and dependent.However, studies of children affected by con-flict and displacement in Uganda (De Berry,2004) and Nepal (Hinton, 2000) have shownthat children exposed to many and varied risksare not all inherently vulnerable. Similarly,research from the Balkans has highlighted howvulnerability in childhood does not necessarilypreclude ability (Swaine, 2004). Many childrenare highly adaptable and able to adjust; someshow greater personal resilience even thanadults (Palmer, 1983). A few authors have sug-gested that a minority of children can even gainsocially, emotionally, or psychologically fromexposure to unfavorable conditions (Dawes,1992; Ekblad, 1993; Garmezy, 1983; Zwi,Macrae, & Ugalde, 1992). For example, in theirlongitudinal research with children on the islandof Kauai in Hawaii, Werner and Smith (1998)found that children in families under stress whoare required to attend to family needs becomemore committed and responsible citizens whenthey grow up than those raised in more securecircumstances. And in Bhutanese refugee campsin Nepal, it was discovered that, through theirconscious caregiving strategies, children wereable to have a significant positive impact on thepsychological and emotional worlds of adults(Hinton, 2000). Indeed, there is considerableanecdotal evidence that during adversity,children, both boys and girls, often bear theprime responsibilities within the family as care-givers of incapacitated adults or younger sib-lings, prime earners of family income, and so on.

These kinds of findings have led manyresearchers and practitioners to shift the focusaway from pathology and to search for theforces that might protect children from risk andpromote their resilience. It is now accepted bymany that the psychosocial outcome of expo-sure to adversity varies from individual to indi-vidual and population to population and ismediated by an array of personal, family, and

Children’s Risk, Resilience, and Coping in Extreme Situations–•–17

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 17

broader environmental factors or processes thatinteract with each other in a dynamic manner.These processes produce either a heightenedprobability of negative outcome in children’sdevelopment and well-being or prevent, orreduce, risk. The complex interplay of risk andprotective factors can be observed in many casesof child labor, for example. Because children’swork is often regarded as securing the transitionto adulthood and because earning a wage raisesan individual’s status within the household,many children gain a powerful sense of inde-pendence and self-esteem from work that toexpert observers is evidently menial, exploita-tive, and even dangerous. Thus, despite therisks, children engaged in hazardous work arelikely to be buffered psychologically and emo-tionally if their occupation is socially valuedand their work recognized as contributing tofamily maintenance and integration (Woodhead,1998). On the other hand, a child whose familydoes not approve of his or her work or whosejob is denigrated by his or her community willlikely find it much harder to maintain a senseof self-worth and is at far greater risk of beingoverwhelmed psychologically by the experi-ence. Thus, the value placed on children’s workand the opportunities it affords have a verydirect effect on coping and resilience.

Hence, children’s well-being is mediated andinfluenced by protective processes at differentlevels and is highly dynamic and changeable.These processes may operate in different waysby altering exposure to risk, for example, or byreducing negative chain reactions that contributeto the long-term effects of exposure and so on(Rutter, 1987). From the child labor example,we can see that protective processes can “pro-vide resistance to risk and foster outcomesmarked by patterns of adaptation and compe-tence” (Garmezy, 1983, p. 49).

That said, protective processes are change-able according to situation and context and canin themselves, under certain conditions, becomea source of risk. This point is made by Apfel andSimon (1996), who identify a number of individ-ual attributes in children—including resourceful-ness, curiosity, intellectual mastery, flexibility inemotional experience, access to autobiographi-cal memory, a goal for which to live, need andability to help others—as contributing to their

resilience. They stress how those attributes thatmay support well-being in some situations can,under different circumstances, have the oppositeeffect—they can increase vulnerability. Failureto achieve a desired goal during times of stress,for instance, can lead to loss of hope, self-reproach, and suicidal tendencies. Similarly,children who are highly motivated and drivento achieve may seem well equipped to masterdifficult situations. Yet these same children canfeel inadequate and unsure of themselves whenconfronted with overwhelming circumstancesover which they have no control or influence.

Thus, although many children do remaincompetent in the face of adversity, research andexperience warn against presuming such childrento be invulnerable. In fact, evidence suggeststhat the effects of stress are cumulative in thatchildren who are exposed to several stressfulevents and circumstances are at particular riskof becoming overwhelmed emotionally and psy-chologically. Furthermore, children who appearresilient in the short term may not be so in thelonger term, whereas children who seem morevulnerable initially sometimes grow in compe-tence and resourcefulness (see, e.g., Rutter,1990). Moreover, competent behavior and effec-tive coping should not be seen as indicating highlevels of self-esteem or happiness, for peoplewho have successfully overcome adversity maystill experience depression, difficulties with rela-tionships, and so forth (Garmezy, 1993).

This evidence highlights the need to recog-nize that concepts such as resilience and copingshould be applied with extreme caution even atthe empirical level, let alone the theoretical;their use should not be taken to imply thatchildren who appear to have adapted success-fully to difficult situations suffer no ill effects.Nor should they be regarded as fixed states. Thechallenge in this regard is to identify ways inwhich resilience and coping in children can bestbe supported while also being mindful of thepsychological and emotional costs to childrenand of the need to minimize these.

CHILDREN AS SOCIAL AGENTS

Most children throughout the world are heavilyreliant on the nurture and support of adults or

18–•–THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 18

elder siblings, without which they would fail tothrive, or perish. This fact emphasizes the virtueof making a distinction between children andadults, because such a distinction serves to pro-tect the vulnerable and to ensure the survivaland healthy development of all. Indeed, it isstriking that most modern policies are based onthe premise that adults are the ones best equippedto define what is good and bad for children andalso the ones responsible for child protectionmeasures. Certainly, adults have a moral obliga-tion toward the young that includes protectionagainst adversity. This obligation, in regard tothe State at least, has now been enshrined ininternational law through the CRC.

Nevertheless, there is considerable evidenceglobally that adult society is failing childrenbadly. Indeed, many children suffer as a conse-quence of actions by the very adults—parents,teachers, religious leaders, state officials—whohave the greatest obligation toward them. Infact, society is structurally defined to conferon children minority status and in this way con-strains their power and agency. However, con-ceptualizing children as helpless and dependenton adults in times of crisis is not necessarily themost effective way of supporting children’s cop-ing and resilience. This is not to deny that somechildren suffer long-term and highly debilitatingpsychological and emotional distress and thatmany need considerable support, specialist care,or both. It is merely to point out that children arenot simply the products of adult beliefs, training,investment, and intervention but social agents intheir own right. Even those children who areespecially troubled can contribute to their ownprotection, if only in the smallest ways. Forexample, orphaned and separated Congolesechildren in Dar es Salaam reported formingalliances with kindhearted Tanzanian adultswho agreed to allow the children to sleep insafety outside their homes in exchange for run-ning occasional errands on behalf of the house-hold head (Mann, 2003b).

Although labeling children “victims” affordsan appropriate emphasis on their suffering andhighlights the fact that responsibility for theirmisfortune lies with others, it tends to charac-terize children as passive and defenseless in theface of adversity. Viewing children as helplessmeans that their own efforts to cope are often not

seen as legitimate or, indeed, even recognizedat all. This lack of acknowledgment of the valid-ity of children’s own strategies can underminetheir ability to act on their situation. It is vitalto acknowledge that if overcoming stressful lifeevents involves beliefs, feelings, competencies,and actions, children’s own perspectives onadversity and the strategies they employ fortheir own protection are critical to coping andresilience. As we have stated, children do notalways understand, experience, or respond tomisfortune in the same way adults do. Forinstance, during the conflict in the Balkans,many Kosovar Albanian parents married theirdaughters off early so as to protect them fromrape, trafficking, and other violations (Swaine,2004). These girls, however, were unhappy withthis strategy because it often resulted in theirseparation from cherished friends and familymembers at a time when they were needed most.Moreover, in many cases it restricted them toa lifetime of loneliness, domestic drudgery, andabusive or unhappy marriages. This and count-less other examples show that disregardingchildren’s perspectives can result in misplacedinterventions that do not address children’s realproblems or concerns and may even increasetheir suffering.

It is now apparent that supporting childrenin situations of adversity requires the perspec-tive not just that children need special protectionbut that they have valid insights into their well-being, valid solutions to their problems, and avalid role in implementing those solutions. Suchan approach acknowledges children not merelyas beneficiaries of intervention by adults or asfuture societal assets but as competent socialactors. For adults to better understand children’sperspectives, we must temper adult expertisewith some humility and allow children toexplain and interpret their childhoods. This isnot an easy task, for adults sometimes judgechildren’s coping strategies—being streetwise,for example, or assuming the role of freedomfighter during civil strife—to be detrimental totheir well-being. But this reality implies theneed for new approaches to planning and policydevelopment that involve more effective con-sultation and collaboration with children. Itrequires their inclusion in a broad range of civicprocesses, especially the identification of policy

Children’s Risk, Resilience, and Coping in Extreme Situations–•–19

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 19

need and impact, and the governance of childhoodinstitutions. It implies also the need for researchmethods and methodologies that are participa-tory and child centered and give proper scopefor children’s testimony. The CRC provides forsuch an approach, although it is seldom trans-lated effectively into policy and practice, whichhave tended to employ a far more paternalisticoutlook.

If children’s participation in their own pro-tection is to become a reality, appropriate foraand mechanisms must be developed. There isconsiderable scope for children to become moreinvolved in the management and implementa-tion of existing institutions and interventionsrun by adults. But there is also ample opportu-nity for greater engagement in collective actionand mutual support with peers. To suggest thatchildren have a valid role to play in their ownprotection is not to imply that they should takeon the full complement of adult responsibilitiesor that they be treated as adults. Rather, it is toargue that children should have substantiallymore opportunities to participate in policy andaction than they do currently. It highlights theneed to work alongside and “with” rather than“for” children.

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, we have argued that the termresilience provides a useful metaphor for theempirical observation that some children, possi-bly the majority, are surprisingly able to adjustto or overcome situations of serious adversity.Many of these more competent boys and girlsappear to remain resourceful in the long termand to adapt well in adulthood; some even findthemselves caring for younger siblings andadults more vulnerable than themselves. Thisquality and the factors that contribute to it aresurely worthy of extensive exploration and analy-sis. Moreover, the ability to isolate and amelioraterisk and enhance protective factors in the life ofa developing child is key to effective interven-tion. If we are to better protect children, weurgently require more information about whatrenders them vulnerable or resilient, what cir-cumstances are amenable to intervention andchange, and how best to assist them.

For interventions to effectively address theactual needs and concerns of children, thisinformation must be grounded in both soundtheory and appropriate empirical evidence froma broad range of settings. The existing researchinto risk and resilience in children confrontingadversity goes some way toward addressingthese requirements by stressing, for example,the significance of personal traits of the individ-ual child, family circumstances, and peer andinstitutional support. Nevertheless, we havenoted that this literature also embodies certainshortcomings, not least the fact that it makesvery little use of children’s own understandingsand perspectives across cultures and of theiractive contributions to their well-being, coping,and very survival.

We suggest that given the present state ofthe art, use of the term resilience cannot betaken to imply a fully-fledged theory about howchildren deal with adversity, for the conceptdoes not stand up to rigorous scientific interro-gation, especially when translated across culturaldomains. This point matters a great deal because,according to the logic laid down by Vygotsky,culture is not a mere variable in human cogni-tion but a major generative force: It is the lensthrough which we view the world, learn skills insurvival and coping, and interpret and respondto our experiences. If core notions like thoseof personhood, death, well-being, and so onvary across cultures and if these and other simi-lar notions really do shape the way in whichhumans address adversities, then scholars needto develop theoretical constructs that have fargreater explanatory reach globally. This maymean abandoning some of the long-cherishedideas of the social sciences, such as the dichoto-mous conceptualization of the individual andthe world he or she inhabits. Such expandedconstructs should take account of the highlydynamic and mediated nature of human responsesto misfortune and the complexity of meaningsattached to this experience in different contexts.What at one point in history, in one setting, andfor one child may be a hazard, at another timeand in another setting and for a different childmay be an important stimulus to learning andcompetence: The factors that mediate risk andresilience may have different effects in eachchild at different phases during that child’s

20–•–THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 20

life. These new constructs should also aidunderstanding of the effects on children ofdifferent kinds of risks, because it cannot beassumed that boys and girls deal with individualor intrafamilial adversities in the same way asthey cope with major societal upheavals likewar. This recognition implies a shift in empha-sis away from the intrapsychic functioning ofthe individual, generic child and from consider-ation of that child as an isolated unit of analysistoward greater consideration of structural forcesthat mediate the well-being of whole groups orcategories of children.

Thus, there is a great deal more researchneeded in this field, especially in majority-world contexts and with children whose lives donot conform to the image perpetuated by much ofthe existing literature. These children—workers,caregivers, household heads, sex workers, free-dom fighters, and so on—have much to teachus in terms of broadening our understandingof well-being and coping in extremely difficultsituations. Given the complexity of the issuesunder consideration and the diversity ofchildren’s lives in different circumstances, it iscrucial that we do justice to these children’sexperiences and perspectives. Doing so meansincreasing our knowledge while avoiding sim-plistic policy recommendations aimed at reduc-ing risk or enhancing protective factors. It istime to engage with the reality of children’slives in different settings and support their verydifferent and diverse skills and capacities.

NOTES

1. For the purpose of this chapter, a child isdefined in accordance with the UN Convention onthe Rights of the Child as any individual below theage of 18.

2. Vygotsky articulated his ideas in the early20th century, but North American and Europeanresearchers did not take up his ideas until much morerecently.

3. We draw heavily on ideas shared with us byWilliam Myers during personal communications forthis and the following point.

4. Charles Super and Sara Harkness (1992) high-light the importance of cultural specificity throughthe concept of “developmental niche,” which they use

to explain how children’s needs and development aremediated and expressed in particular ways in particu-lar cultural and social settings.

5. As it happens, some of the most widelyaccepted ideas about what is detrimental and what isbeneficial to children turn out to be founded on a par-ticular ideology or set of interests and therefore havelittle logic in terms of children’s well-being. One hasonly to contrast internationally promoted attitudesand assumptions toward children’s labor force workwith those toward children’s unpaid household workto comprehend how completely modern attitudesreflect the social and historical context from whichthey are derived. Why is drudgery that is unpaidhousehold work acceptable and even good forchildren, whereas drudgery in the paid labor force isunacceptable and bad? Just as paid and unpaid laborforce work share many characteristics, so labor forcework and housework are often hard to differentiatein terms of children’s effort, safety and risk factors,intellectual stimulation, and hours worked. Yet in mostpolicy, domestic work is still considered appropriatefor children, whereas labor force work is not. Even ifa practice was identified as abusive to children, toexhort families or communities to behave differentlywould not necessarily foster children’s well-being.This is because, as indicated, the effects of adversityon children are determined not merely by the objec-tive nature of an act or situation so much as bychildren’s subjective experience of that situation.

REFERENCES

Ager, A. (1996). Children, war and psychologicalintervention. In S. Carr & J. F. Schumaker(Eds.), Psychology and the developing world(pp. 66–73). Westport, CT: Greenwood.

Anthony, E. J. (1987). Risk, vulnerability, andresilience: An overview. In E. J. Anthony & B. J.Cohler (Eds.), The invulnerable child (pp. 3–48).New York: Guilford Press.

Apfel, R., & Simon, B. (1996). Psychosocial inter-ventions for children of war: The value of amodel of resiliency. Medicine and GlobalSurvival. Retrieved December 9, 2004, fromwww.ippnw.org/MGS/V3Apfel.html.

Armstrong, M., Boyden, J., Galappatti, A., & Hart, J.(2004). Piloting methods for the evaluation ofpsychosocial programme impact in Eastern SriLanka. Report for USAID, Oxford. Retrieved

Children’s Risk, Resilience, and Coping in Extreme Situations–•–21

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 21

December 9, 2004, from www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/ PDFs/rrpilotingmethods04.pdf

Bernard, B. (1995). Fostering resilience in children(ERIC Digest No. EDO-PS-95). RetrievedDecember 9, 2004, from resilnet.uiuc.edu/library/benard95.html

Bit, S. (1991). The warrior heritage: A psychologicalperspective of Cambodian trauma. El Cerrito,CA: Seanglim Bit.

Boyden, J. (2002, September). Unpublished fieldnotes: Interviews with former abducted childcombatants, Gulu, Uganda. Country Review ofUganda Programme, Save the Children Denmark.

Boyden, J., Eyber, C., Feeny, T., & Scott, C. (2004).Children and poverty. Part II. Voices of children:Experiences and perceptions from Belarus,Bolivia, Sierra Leone, India and Kenya (Childrenand Poverty Series). Richmond, VA: ChristianChildren’s Fund.

Bracken, P. (1998). Hidden agendas: Deconstructingpost traumatic stress disorder. In P. Bracken &C. Petty (Eds.), Rethinking the trauma of war(pp. 38–59). London: Save the Children FundUK and Free Association Press.

Bracken, P., Giller, J. E., & Summerfield, D. (1995).Psychological responses to war and atrocity:The limitations of current concepts. SocialScience and Medicine, 40(8), 1073–1082.

Briggs, J. L. (1986, September). Expecting the unex-pected: Canadian Inuit training for an experi-mental lifestyle. Paper presented at the FourthInternational Conference on Hunting andGathering Societies, Ontario, Canada.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1986). Ecology of the familyas a context for human development: Researchperspectives. Developmental Psychology, 22(6),723–742.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1996). The ecology of humandevelopment: Experiments by nature and design.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Cole, M. (1992). Culture in development. In M. H.Bornstein & M. E. Lamb (Eds.), Human devel-opment: An advanced textbook (731–789).Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology: A once andfuture discipline. Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press.

Cole, M., Gay, J., Glick, J., & D. Sharp. (1971).The cultural context of learning and thinking:An exploration in experimental anthropology.London: Methuen.

Dawes, A. (1992, November). Psychological discourseabout political violence and its effects onchildren. Paper presented at the meeting of theMental Health of Refugee Children Exposedto Violent Environments, Refugee StudiesProgramme, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.

Dawes, A., & Donald, D. (1994). Understanding thepsychological consequences of adversity. InA. Dawes & D. Donald (Eds.), Childhood andadversity: Psychological perspectives fromSouth African research (pp. 1–27). Cape Town:David Philip.

De Berry, J. (2004). The sexual vulnerability of ado-lescent girls during civil war in Teso, Uganda.In J. Boyden & J. de Berry (Eds.), Children andyouth on the front line: Ethnography, armed con-flict and displacement. Oxford & New York:Berghahn Books.

De Vries, M. (1996). Trauma in cultural perspective.In B. Van der Volk, A. McFarlane, & L. Weisaette(Eds.), Traumatic stress: The effects of over-whelming experience on mind, body and society(pp. 398–413). London: Guildford Press.

Drèze, J., & Sen, A. (1995). Gender inequality andwomen’s agency. In J. Drèze & A. Sen (Eds.),India: Economic development and social opportu-nity (pp. 140–178). Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Eisenbruch, M. (1991). From post-traumatic stressdisorder to cultural bereavement: Diagnosis ofSoutheast Asian refugees. Social Science andMedicine, 33(6), 673–680.

Ekblad, S. (1993). Psychosocial adaptation ofchildren while housed in a Swedish refugeecamp: Aftermath of the collapse of Yugoslavia.Stress Medicine, 9, 159–166.

Engle, P., Castle, S., & Menon, P. (1996). Childdevelopment: Vulnerability and resilience. SocialScience and Medicine, 43(5), 621–635.

Fraser, M. W. (Ed.). (1997). Risk and resilience in child-hood: An ecological perspective. Washington, DC:NASW Press.

Galappatti, A. (2002). Caring for separated children:An approach from Sri Lanka. Colombo, SriLanka: Save the Children Norway.

Garbarino, J. (1999, November). What children cantell us about the trauma of forced migration.Seminar presented at the Refugee StudiesProgramme, University of Oxford, Oxford.

Garbarino, J., Kostelny, K., & Dubrow, N. (1991). Noplace to be a child: Growing up in a war zone.Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.

22–•–THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 22

Garmezy, N. (1983). Stressors of childhood. InN. Garmezy & M. Rutter (Eds.), Stress, copingand development in children (pp. 43–84). NewYork: McGraw-Hill.

Garmezy, N. (1993). Children in poverty: Resiliencedespite risk. Psychiatry, 56(1), 127–136.

Garmezy, N., & Masten, A. (1991). The protectiverole of competence indicators in childrenat risk. In E. M. Cummings (Ed.), Life spandevelopmental psychology: Perspectives onstress and coping (pp. 151–176). Hillsdale, NJ:Erlbaum.

Garmezy, N., & Rutter, M. (Eds.). (1983). Stress,coping and development in children. New York:McGraw-Hill.

Gibbs, S. (1994). Post-war social reconstructionin Mozambique: Reframing children’s experi-ence of trauma and healing. Disasters, 18(3),268–276.

Gilmore, D. (1990). Manhood in the making:Cultural concepts of masculinity. New Haven,CT: Yale University Press.

Goodnow, J. J. (1990). The socialization of cognition.In J. W. Stigler, R. A. Shweder, & G. Herdt(Eds.), Cultural psychology (pp. 259–286).New York: Cambridge University Press.

Goyos, J. M. (1997). Identifying resiliency factorsin adult “Pedro Pan” children: A retrospectivestudy. Doctoral dissertation submitted to EllenWhiteside McDonnell School of Social Work,Barry University, Miami, FL.

Hinton, R. (2000). “Seen but not heard”: Refugeechildren and models of coping. In C. Panter-Brick & M. Smith (Eds.), Abandoned children(pp. 199–212). Cambridge, UK: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Jareg, E., & Falk, L. (1999, April-May). Centre-basedand community based psychosocial projects forwar-affected children. Draft Report for ReddBarna and Red Barnet, Save the ChildrenNorway and Save the Children Denmark, Oslo.

Kleinman, A., & Kleinman, J. (1991). Suffering and itsprofessional transformation: Toward an ethnogra-phy of interpersonal experience. Culture, Medi-cine and Psychiatry, 15(3), 275–301.

Korbin, J. (Ed.). (1981). Child abuse and neglect:Cross-cultural perspectives. Berkeley: Univer-sity of California Press.

Le Vine, P. (1999, July). Assessing “detachment”patterns and contextual trauma across cultures(trauma detachment grid). Seminar presented

at the Refugee Studies Centre, University ofOxford, Oxford.

Lock, M., & Scheper-Hughes, N. (1990). A criticalreinterpretive approach in medicinal anthropol-ogy: Rituals and routines of discipline and dis-sent. In T. Johnson & C. Sargent (Eds.), Medicalanthropology: Contemporary theory and method(pp. 47–72). New York: Praeger.

Luthar, S. S. (2003). The culture of affluence:Psychological costs of material wealth. ChildDevelopment, 74, 1581–1593.

Luthar, S. S., & Cicchetti, D. (2000). The constructof resilience: Implications for interventions andsocial policies. Development and Psychopathol-ogy, 12, 857–885.

Luthar, S. S., Cicchetti, D., & Becker, B. (2000). Theconstruct of resilience: A critical evaluation andguidelines for future work. Child Development,71(3), 543–562.

Mann, G. (2000). Separated children on the Thai-Burma border: A field research report. Unpub-lished paper, Refugee Studies Centre, Universityof Oxford, UK.

Mann, G. (2001). Networks of support: A literaturereview of care issues for separated children.Stockholm: Save the Children Sweden.

Mann, G. (2002). “Wakimbizi, Wakimbizi”: Con-golese children’s perspectives of life in Dar esSalaam, Tanzania. Environment & Urbanization,14(2), 115–122.

Mann, G. (2003a). Family matters: The care andprotection of children affected by HIV/AIDS inMalawi. Stockholm: Save the Children Sweden.

Mann, G. (2003b). Not seen or heard: The lives ofseparated refugee children in Dar es Salaam.Stockholm: Save the Children Sweden.

Masten, A., Best, K. M., & Garmezy, N. (1990).Resilience and development: Contributions tothe study of children who overcome adversity.Development and Psychopathology, 2, 425–444.

McCallin, M., & Fozzard, S. (1991). The impact oftraumatic events on the psychosocial wellbeingof Mozambican refugee women and children.Geneva: International Catholic Child Bureau.

Palmer, O. J. (1983). The psychological assessmentof children (2nd ed.). New York: John Wiley.

Parker, M. (1996). Social devastation and mentalhealth in North East Africa. In T. Allen (Ed.),In search of cool ground: War, flight and home-coming in North East Africa (pp. 262–273).London: James Curry.

Children’s Risk, Resilience, and Coping in Extreme Situations–•–23

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 23

Phinney, J. S. (1996). When we talk about Americanethnic groups, what do we mean? AmericanPsychologist, 51(9), 918–927.

Punamaki, R.-L. (1987). Content of and factorsaffecting coping modes among Palestinianchildren. Scandinavian Journal of DevelopmentAlternatives, 6(1), 86–98.

Ressler, E., Boothby, N., & Steinbock, D. (1988).Unaccompanied children: Care and protectionin wars, natural disasters, and refugee move-ments. New York: Oxford University Press.

Ressler, E., Tortorici, J., & Marcelino, A. (1992).Children in situations of armed conflict: A guideto the provision of services. New York: UNICEF.

Reynolds-White, S. (1998). Questioning misfortune.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Richman, J. M., & Bowen, G. L. (1997). School fail-ure: An ecological-interactional-developmentalperspective. In M. W. Fraser (Ed.), Risk andresilience in childhood (pp. 95–116.). Washington:NASW Press.

Richman, N. (1993). Annotation: Children in situa-tions of political violence. Journal of ChildPsychology and Psychiatry, 34(8), 1286–1302.

Robertson, A. F. (1991). Beyond the family: Thesocial organisation of human reproduction.Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking.Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Rogoff, B. (2003). The cultural nature of humandevelopment. Oxford & New York: OxfordUniversity Press.

Rousseau, C., Said, T. M., Gagné, M-J., & Bibeau, G.(1998). Resilience in unaccompanied minorsfrom the north of Somalia. PsychoanalyticReview, 85(4), 615–637.

Rutter, M. (1987). Psychosocial resilience and protec-tive mechanisms. American Journal of Ortho-psychiatry, 57(3), 316–331.

Rutter, M. (1990). Psychosocial resilience and pro-tective mechanisms. In J. E. Rolf, A. Masten,D. Cicchetti, K. Nuechterlein, & S. Weintraub(Eds.), Risk and protective factors in the devel-opment of psychopathology (pp. 181–214).Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Schaffer, H. R. (1996). Social development. Oxford,UK: Blackwell.

Schaffer, H. R. (2000). The early experience assump-tion: Past, present, and future. InternationalJournal of Behavioural Development, 24(1), 5–14.

Shweder, R., & Bourne, E. (1982). Does the concept ofthe person vary cross-culturally? In A. Marsella& G. White (Eds.), Cultural conceptions of men-tal health and therapy (pp. 158–199). Dordrecht,Netherlands: Reidal.

Summerfield, D. (1991). Psychological effects ofconflict in the Third World. Development inPractice, 1(3), 159–173.

Summerfield, D. (1998). The social experience of warand some issues for the humanitarian field. InP. Bracken & C. Petty (Eds.), Rethinking thetrauma of war (pp. 9–37). London & New York:Save the Children Fund UK, Free AssociationBooks.

Super, C., & Harkness, S. (1986). The developmentalniche: A conceptualisation at the interface ofchild and culture. International Journal of Behav-ioural Development, 9, 545–569.

Super, C., & Harkness, S. (1992). Cultural perspec-tives on child development. In D. Wagner &H. Stevenson (Eds.), Cultural perspectives on childdevelopment. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.

Swaine, A. (with Feeny, T.). (2004). A neglected per-spective: Adolescent girls” experiences of theKosovo conflict of 1999. In J. Boyden & J. deBerry (Eds.), Children and youth on the frontline: Ethnography, armed conflict and displace-ment (pp. 63–86). Oxford & New York:Berghahn Books.

Tolfree, D. (2004). Whose children? Separatedchildren’s protection and participation in criticalsituations. Stockholm: Save the Children Sweden.

Turton, R., Straker, G., & Mooza, F. (1990). Theexperiences of violence in the lives of townshipyouth in “unrest” and “normal” conditions. SouthAfrican Journal of Psychology, 21(2), 77–84.

Ungar, M. (2004). Nurturing hidden resilience in trou-bled youth. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Vraalsen, P. (in press). Separated children in SouthSudan: A report of a participatory study.Nairobi: UNICEF.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The developmentof higher psychological processes. Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press.

Werner, E., & Smith, R. (1992). Overcoming the odds:High risk children from birth to adulthood.Ithaca, NY, & London: Cornell University Press.

Werner, E., & Smith, R. (1998). Vulnerable but invin-cible: A longitudinal study of resilient childrenand youth. New York: Adams, Bannister, Cox.

24–•–THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 24

Wilson, E. O. (1998). Consilience: The unity ofknowledge. New York: Knopf.

Woodhead, M. (1998). Is there a place for work inchild development? Implications of child devel-opment theory and research for interpretation ofthe UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,with particular reference to Article 32, onChildren, Work and Exploitation. London: OpenUniversity and Rädda Barnen.

World Health Organization. (1992). Psychosocialconsequences of disasters: Prevention and man-agement. Geneva: World Health Organization.

Wyman, P. (2003). Emerging perspectives on contextspecificity of children’s adaptation and resilience.

In S. S. Luther (Ed.), Resilience and vulnerabil-ity: Adaptation in the context of childhood adver-sities (pp. 293–317). Cambridge, UK: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Yates, T., Egeland, B., & Sroufe, A. (2003).Rethinking resilience: A developmental processperspective. In S. S. Luthar (Ed.), Resilience andvulnerability: Adaptation in the context of child-hood adversities (pp. 243–266). Cambridge,UK: Cambridge University Press.

Zwi, A., Macrae, J., & Ugalde, A. (1992). Childrenand war. The Kangaroo, 1(1), 46–57.

Children’s Risk, Resilience, and Coping in Extreme Situations–•–25

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 25

Ungar-01.qxd 2/22/2005 5:25 PM Page 26