Intersections of Education and Resilience: How Contexts Operate in the Protection of At-Risk Adolescents.

Abstract

The studies in this dissertation were designed to contribute to the literature on educational resilience by addressing the various mechanisms through which contexts could operate as protective factors for those at-risk both educationally and behaviorally during adolescence. The inclusion of multiple outcomes indicative of resilience has been suggested by other researchers who have found that adaptive outcomes are often present in one domain but absent in others (e.g. Luthar, Doernberger, & Zigler, 1993). The results from Study 1 indicated that sports participation serves a promotive function during adolescence, as participation was generally related to lower substance use and better academic outcomes in the 8th and 10th grades. However, different patterns emerged by grade and gender that suggest that the type and amount of participation matters when predicting pertinent outcomes. Study 2 focused on the leisure activities of high risk-takers in order to determine more and less adaptive patterns in terms of substance use and educational resilience. The findings from this study identified the following types of high risk-takers: Athletics Only, School Oriented, Uninvolved Users, Involved Users, Uninvolved Non-Users, and Club Members. These results supported the prediction that many high risk-takers demonstrated educational and behavioral resilience; the School Oriented and Club Member risk-takers reported the most resilient outcomes, whereas Uninvolved Users and Involved Users were the least resilient. Finally, Study 3 proposed model of the mediating effect of motivation on the relationship between teacher fairness and respect on achievement and compared the process and magnitude of such a model for students in traditional and alternative school settings. The results indicated that teacher fairness and respect and motivation are promotive for the educational outcomes of students in both settings. Motivation, however, was additionally protective for students in alternative schools as it was more strongly related to achievement outcomes for these students. Taken together, the results of these three studies provide information regarding the diversity of risks and protective processes at work during adolescence. This work contributes to an understanding of the complex mechanisms that operate in the study of educational resilience.