Resilience and its cultural relevance in children impacted by violence in Pakistan

• In Event: Roundtable Session 3
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Teaching and Teachers

Proposal

The study of how to inculcate resilience in children around the world impacted by violence to promote better outcomes for them is laudable. Yet researchers still need a deeper understanding of local culture and norms, or scholarship and practice will fail to promote realistic pathways to “success”.
Resilience research studies people affected by adversity and how they achieve the unlikely goal of “success”. It does so by mapping the following pathway -1) an individual faces adversity, 2) is exposed to a protective factor that supports them to 3) achieve positive outcomes that would be unlikely in the absence of the protective factor. Thus, an individual demonstrates resilience. Though there is contention about how to define “success”, many Western researchers define success as positive cognitive and behavioral outcomes, including good cognitive development, good behavior, good peer and caregiver relationships, and good mental health (Masten, 2014; Masten & Cicchetti, 2016). However, this definition is not universally true though is often studied as such (Abu-Amsha & Armstrong, 2018; Arnett, 2008; Masten & Cicchetti, 2018; Mills, 2014). This presentation explores how resilience research needs to be embedded in cultural knowledge, and how failing to do so, may end up doing more harm than good. It makes the case that what constitutes “positive outcomes” cannot be generalized across the world, and reliance on concepts developed in the West does not translate into other regions (Brown, 2018; Masten, 2014; Masten & Cicchetti, 2018; Saeed & Yasin, 2017). This is because constructs and concepts developed by Western research may make it difficult to capture local nuance (Arnett, 2008; Engle et al., 2011; Masten, 2013)
My research was conducted on students impacted by various large-scale domestic terrorist incidents in Karachi, Pakistan. I interview students affected by large-scale violence targeting their religious or ethnic identity, their parents, teachers, and peers. I find that the typically studied positive outcomes of good cognitive development, good behavior, good peer and caregiver relationships, and good mental health (Masten, 2014; Masten & Cicchetti, 2016), are unrealistic, unachievable, or in cases harmful to the students themselves. I explore other potential pathways towards resilience in the context of these students. I explore what success means for these students in different parts of the megacity, and through their voices and experiences discuss what researchers should explore, and practitioners should focus on, to effectively support these vulnerable populations.
I discuss what these Pakistani children, their caregivers, and peers consider success and why. I discuss how and why these do not fit into the typical way that resilience is studied and measured. I also discuss what these individuals consider the pathways to achieve their success goals. From students that discuss their need to exhibit ‘bad’ and violent behavior to survive in schools, to those who believe that Pakistani schools are detrimental to their goals of becoming good religious practitioners and achieving true spiritual success. I open questions about how we might begin to add nuance to our conversations about supporting similar children in schools.

Author

• Haider Fancy, New York University