DISTINGUISHING DIFFERENCES IN PATHWAYS TO RESILIENCE AMONG CANADIAN YOUTH (original) (raw)

As part of an 11-country qualitative study of resilience among at-risk youth, 19 Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadian adolescents were interviewed. In this paper, we report on the Canadian youths' culturally specific and generic strategies to cope with adversity. Findings suggest that the youths' resilience, or capacity to cope under stress, reflects different degrees of access to 7 mental health-enhancing experiences (we term these "tensions"): access to material resources; access to supportive relationships; development of a desirable personal identity; experiences of power and control; adherence to cultural traditions; experiences of social justice; and experiences of a sense of cohesion with others.