Developing Resilience: Acknowledging Racial and Systemic Issues

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.