Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Resilience Beyond Risk: Youth Re-defining Resilience Through Collective Art-Making

  • Published:
Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

There is a strong parallel between the discursive construction of youth and the definition of resilience, with shared characterizations of deficit, risk and adversity. The purpose of this study was to explore the possibility of redefining resilience by incorporating youth’s own conceptualizations and experiences through collaborative art-making. Twenty-three youth (16–29 years old) participated in art-making workshops guided by six youth researchers, who also assisted with data collection. While youth participants were strongly impacted by external forces imposing a normative assumption of ‘successful youthhood,’ they actively sought out both unique subjectivity and solidarity to counter the negative forces threatening their well-being. The findings suggest that these young people perceive resilience as a crucial component of identity management. Acknowledging youth perceptions of resilience as an intersubjective process of identity negotiation, rather than a personality trait or a buildable capacity for coping, may provide valuable guidance to social work professionals.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Aranda, K., Zeeman, L., Scholes, J., & Morales, A. S.-M. (2012). The resilient subject: Exploring subjectivity, identity and the body in narratives of resilience. Health, 16(5), 548–563.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Baum, F., MacDougall, C., & Smith, D. (2006). Participatory action research. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 60(10), 854–857.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beck, U. (2005). Power in the global age: A new global political economy. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Borda, O. F. (2006). Participatory (action) research in social theory: Origins and challenges. In P. Reason & H. Bradbury (Eds.), Handbook of action research: Participative inquiry and practice (pp. 27–37). London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2012). Thematic analysis. In H. Cooper (Ed.), APA handbook of research methods in psychology: Vol. 2. Research designs (pp. 57–71). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bresler, L. (2006). Toward connectedness: Aesthetically based research. Studies in Art Education, 48(1), 52–69.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chisholm, L., Kovacheva, S., & Merico, M. (Eds.). (2011). European Youth Studies: Integrating research, policy and practice. Innsbruck: University of Innsbruck, Institute of Educational Science.

    Google Scholar 

  • Devicienti, F., & Poggi, A. (2011). Poverty and social exclusion: Two sides of the same coin or dynamically interrelated processes? Applied Economics, 43(25), 3549–3571.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diouf, M. (2003). Engaging postcolonial cultures: African youth and public space. African Studies Review, 46(2), 1–12.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doucette, K. (2010). Environmental scan: Extended age definition for youth 15-24. http://www.youthpolicy.org/library/wp-content/uploads/library/2010_Environmental_Scan_Extended_Age_Definition_for_Youth_Eng.pdf. Accessed October 10, 2018.

  • Einstein, G., & Shildrick, M. (2009). The postconventional body: Retheorising women’s health. Social Science & Medicine, 69(2), 293–300.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fava, N. M., Munro-Kramer, M. L., Felicetti, I. L., Darling-Fisher, C. S., Pardee, M., Helman, A., … Martyn, K. K. (2016). Patient-centered participatory research in three health clinics: Benefits, challenges, and lessons learned. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 38(11), 1509–1530.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Finn, J. L. (2013). Judging childhood. Children and Youth Services Review, 35(8), 1166–1173.

    Google Scholar 

  • Finn, J. L., Nybell, L. M., & Shook, J. J. (2013). Place, power, and possibility: Remaking social work with children and youth. Children and Youth Services Review, 35(8), 1159–1165.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fisher, P. (2008). Wellbeing and empowerment: The importance of recognition. Sociology of Health & Illness, 30(4), 583–598.

    Google Scholar 

  • Flicker, S., Danforth, J. Y., Wilson, C., Oliver, V., Larkin, J., Restoule, J.-P., … Jackson, R. (2014). “Because we have really unique art”: Decolonizing Research with Indigenous Youth Using the Arts. International Journal of Indigenous Health, 10(1), 16–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foster, V. (2007). ‘Ways of knowing and showing’: Imagination and representation in feminist participatory social research. Journal of Social Work Practice, 21(3), 361–376.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foster, K. R., & Spencer, D. (2011). At risk of what? Possibilities over probabilities in the study of young lives. Journal of Youth Studies, 14(1), 125–143.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A. (1994). Beyond left and right: The future of radical politics: Stanford University Press.

  • Gilchrist, R., Jeffs, T., Spence, J., & Walker, J. (Eds.)., (2009). Essays in the history of youth and community work: Discovering the past: Brasted: Russell Publishing House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giroux, H. A. (2013). America’s education deficit and the war on youth: Reform beyond electoral politics. New York: Montly Review Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harlan, M. A. (2016). Constructing youth: Reflecting on defining youth and impact on methods. School Libraries Worldwide, 22(2), 1–12.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henze, V. (2015). On the concept of youth—some reflections on theory. In I. Schäfer (Ed.), Youth, revolt, recognition: The young generation during and after the “Arab Spring” (pp. 5–16). Berlin: Berlin Mediterranean Institute Berlin (MIB)/HU.

    Google Scholar 

  • Howie, L., & Campbell, P. (2016). Guerrilla selfhood: Imagining young people’s entrepreneurial futures. Journal of Youth Studies, 19(7), 906–920.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huss, E. (2011). What we see and what we say: Combining visual and verbal information within social work research. British Journal of Social Work, 42(8), 1440–1459.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, L. (2012). Measuring resiliency and its predictors in recently discharged foster youth. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, 29(6), 515–533.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jonson-Reid, M., Drake, B., & Kohl, P. L. (2009). Is the overrepresentation of the poor in child welfare caseloads due to bias or need? Children and Youth Services Review, 31(3), 422–427.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kelly, P. (2000). The dangerousness of youth-at-risk: The possibilities of surveillance and intervention in uncertain times. Journal of adolescence, 23(4), 463–476.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kemmis, S., & McTaggart, R. (2008). Participatory action research: communicative action and the public sphere. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Strategies of qualitative inquiry (pp. 271–330). Thousands Oak: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lavergne, C., Dufour, S., Trocmé, N., & Larrivée, M.-C. (2008). Visible minority, Aboriginal, and Caucasian children investigated by Canadian protective services. Child Welfare, 87(2), 59–76.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • MacDonald, C. (2012). Understanding participatory action research: A qualitative research methodology option. The Canadian Journal of Action Research, 13(2), 34–50.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malone, K. (2002). Street life: Youth, culture and competing uses of public space. Environment and Urbanization, 14(2), 157–168.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martinez, S. (2014). “For our words usually land on deaf ears until we scream” writing as a liberatory practice. Qualitative Inquiry, 20(1), 3–14.

    Google Scholar 

  • McNay, L. (2008). Against recognition. Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • McTaggart, R. (1991). Principles for participatory action research. Adult Education Quarterly, 41(3), 168–187.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Neill, M. (2008). Transnational refugees: The transformative role of art? Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 9(2), 59.

    Google Scholar 

  • Osei-Kofi, N. (2013). The emancipatory potential of arts-based research for social justice. Equity & Excellence in Education, 46(1), 135–149.

    Google Scholar 

  • Packard, B. W.-L., Ellison, K. L., & Sequenzia, M. R. (2004). Show and tell: Photo-interviews with Urban adolescent girls. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 5(3), 1–20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roche, J., Tucker, S., Flynn, R., & Thomson, R. (Eds.). (2004). Youth in society: Contemporary theory, policy and practice. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rutman, D., Hubberstey, C., Barlow, A., & Brown, E. (2005). Supporting young people’s transitions from care: Reflections on doing participatory action research with youth from care. In L. A. Brown & S. Strega (Eds.), Research as resistance: Critical, indigenous and anti-oppressive approaches (pp. 153–180). Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schweiger, G. (2014). Recognition theory and global poverty. Journal of Global Ethics, 10(3), 267–273.

    Google Scholar 

  • Seaton, E. (2012). Biology/Nature. In N. Lesko, & S. Talburt (Eds.), Keywords in youth studies: Tracing affects, movements, knowledge’s. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Social Planning Toronto. (2011). Another winter, another spring: Toronto youth speak out about space. Toronto: Social Planning Toronto.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stiell, B., Tang, N., Bennett, C., & Price, C. (2006). Building policy/research relationships: Using innovative methodologies to engage ethnic minority women. Local Economy, 21(2), 211–218.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trocmé, N., Knoke, D., & Blackstock, C. (2004). Pathways to the overrepresentation of Aboriginal children in Canada’s child welfare system. Social Service Review, 78(4), 577–600.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tyler, I. (2013). The riots of the underclass?: Stigmatisation, mediation and the government of poverty and disadvantage in neoliberal Britain. Sociological Research Online, 18(4), 1–10.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ungar, M. (2004). A constructionist discourse on resilience: Multiple contexts, multiple realities among at-risk children and youth. Youth & society, 35(3), 341–365.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ungar, M. (2008). Resilience across cultures. The British Journal of Social Work, 38(2), 218–235.

    Google Scholar 

  • United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (2017). What do we mean by “youth”? Accessed August 29, 2018.

  • Vaughan, C. (2014). Participatory research with youth: Idealising safe social spaces or building transformative links in difficult environments? Journal of Health Psychology, 19(1), 184–192.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Veenstra, G. (2007). Social space, social class and Bourdieu: Health inequalities in British Columbia, Canada. Health & Place, 13(1), 14–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walsh, C. A., Rutherford, G., & Crough, M. (2013). Arts-based research: Creating social change for incarcerated women. Creative Approaches to Research, 6(1), 119.

    Google Scholar 

  • Welshman, J. (2013). Underclass: A history of the excluded since 1880 (2nd edn.). London: Bloomsbury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wyn, J., & White, R. (1996). Rethinking youth. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zenkov, K., & Harmon, J. (2009). Picturing a writing process: Photovoice and teaching writing to urban youth. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(7), 575–584.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

This project was funded by the Doris and Ross Dixon Foundation [15-2900].

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Work, Renison University College, University of Waterloo, 240 Westmount Rd N, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G4, Canada

    Trish Van Katwyk

  2. Transitions Strategy, BRI Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, 150 Kilgour Rd., Toronto, ON, M4G1R8, Canada

    Yukari Seko

Authors
  1. Trish Van Katwyk
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Yukari Seko
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Trish Van Katwyk.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Van Katwyk, T., Seko, Y. Resilience Beyond Risk: Youth Re-defining Resilience Through Collective Art-Making. Child Adolesc Soc Work J 36, 609–619 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-018-0590-0

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-018-0590-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation