Resilience And Academic Achievement In Minority Students

Students can thrive within school programs and sustain their capacity for success despite seemingly overwhelming obstacles. A model of school-based resilience can insulate students from risk and help students acknowledge challenges, embrace them, and learn as students encounter challenge and surmount it. This study of a high school program analyzed the relationship between educational resilience and academic achievement through a direct measure of resilience. The research investigated whether a program increased resilience for minority and low-income high school students and whether stronger resilience was associated with improved academic outcomes. Students in the program produced significantly better academic outcomes, as measured by their improvement in the ACT Educational Planning and Assessment System (EPAS) and Advanced Placement course enrollment. The resilience for students in the study did not improve to a statistically significant level as measured by the Resilience and Youth Development Module. In addition, the study did not find a statistically significant relationship between resilience and the academic indicators. The study’s findings contribute to the growing body of research on the complex nature of resilience for individuals and helps to hone in on resilience as an operational construct for school systems. While this study could not tie student achievement directly to an academic resilience measure, the research laid a path for future studies. An instrument that can differentiate students in terms of school-based resilience would aid the study of how resilience can improve student achievement. The research magnified the need for an educational resilience measure and a mixed methods approach to school-based resilience research. KEYWORDS: resilience; achievement; minority students; low-income students; high school; secondary education; educational resilience; academic resilience