Developing Resilience: Acknowledging Racial and Systemic Issues
Bennett, Earl
:
2018-04-24
Abstract
Resilience is a trait which allows individuals to become “elastic” or “bounce back” from adverse
situations. Resilience has become a topic for kids in urban context and how they handle harsh
environments. Though resilience is needed and can help with adversity, research has failed to
identify its relationship to systemic disparities and other racial l issues. In this paper, I will
challenge the way we view “resilience” (Werner, 2005) for Black children enrolled in elementary
in urban context through the lens of Critical Race Theory. I will closely examine past research on
student resilience in urban school contexts and pay particular attention to studies that do not give
consideration to racial and systemic issues that can drastically affect the education of elementary
children in urban environment.