The multisystemic roots of South African child and youth resilience: A scoping review

Résumé fourni par la source

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: A multisystemic approach to researching resilience investigates resources across multiple systems, including biological, psychological, social, institutional, structural, environmental, and cultural systems, with special interest in how these resources co-act to enable better-than-expected outcomes among risk-exposed children and youth. This approach is an important step toward redressing neoliberal misinterpretations of resilience as a personal capacity. However, it is unclear how well a multisystemic approach is reflected in recent studies of child and youth resilience conducted in South Africa, a country where ongoing structural violence demands resilience from most children and youth. In response, this article reports a scoping review of South African child and youth resilience studies published between 2018 and 2023. METHODOLOGY: The methodology aligned with the PRISMA extension for Scoping Reviews. The authors systematically scoped the available literature (n = 1309 records) to determine which resources from which systems were associated with the resilience of South African children and youth (birth to 29 years). Using a multisystem resilience framework, the narrative review of 99 eligible studies documents the biological, psychological, social, institutional, structural, environmental and cultural resources that enabled better-than-expected outcomes among risk-exposed children and youth. RESULTS: Psychological and social resources were more prominently reported than biological, institutional, structural, environmental or cultural resources. Two-thirds of the included studies reported resources from two or more systems, with psychological and social systems dominating multisystem studies. Despite the inclusion of multiple systems, studies seldom reported co-acting resources. DISCUSSION: Although the attention to resources across multiple systems is encouraging, child and youth resilience agendas will be better served by studies that document co-acting resources. This will allow policymakers and service providers to gauge the additive effects of multiple resources and which combinations of resources are most likely to advance young people's resilience.

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