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Different theories have been identified as explanations on how individuals and environmental factors interact to give rise to resilience. Ecological theories focus on resilience as a reciprocal process between the individual and their social ecology in ways that enable the individual to access resources within their environment in order to cope (Ungar, 2011). Ungar (2008) proposed a theory of resilience that emphasised more on social ecologies in influencing resilience and other developmental components in children. Ungar (2008) was influenced by studies on child development from Vygotsky (1978) who showed that with the right environmental interventions children can attain achievement levels that are beyond their chronological ages, hence the availability of culturally relevant ecological resources can enhance and boost developmetal factors including resilience (Ungar, 2008, 2011). Therefore from this perspective, development can be said to be more socially facilitated than biologically determined. Ungar (2011) advanced four principles, namely the principle of decentrality, complexity, atypical and cultural relativity in trying to explain the phenomenon of resilience.

According to his theory these principles influence the contextual development of resilience and our understanding of the manifestations of resilience in different cultures. The benchmarks for resilience differ in different cultures.

Principle 1 Decentrality

Ungar (2008, 2011) interrogates the factors and processes that can be attributed to resilience outcomes. It is only when these factors and processes can be identified that sound intervention strategies can be implemented. The principle of decentrality tries to advance the superiority of the environment over individual factors in influencing resilience. Facilitative environments tend to account more for resilience outcomes than individual factors. The principle of equifinality which calls for a decentred understanding of resilience where changing environmental factors contribute more to well-being than the changes at an individual level is subsumed under decetralisation of resilience (Ungar, 2011, 2013). Resilience manifests more with the presence of structures that support such manifestations.

One major paradox in the resilience discourse is the fact that resilience refers both to the process leading to resilience and to the outcome of resilience. However, most studies still focus on the outcomes and pay lip service to the process. Outcomes automatically focus on the individual and this inevitably causes the environment to be secondary. This is inspite of the fact that the environment in most cases is the one causing changes in individuals and Ungar (2011) and Hammen (2003) argue that because of this fact, the environment cannot take a secondary role. The danger of focusing mainly on individual charactersistic in resilience studies is that the individual can become blamed for not manifesting resilience in toxic environments and this

notion has been critisised by different scholars (Rutter, 2005; Seccombe, 2002; Seidman & Pedersen, 2003; Ungar, 2005, 2011). Recent studies seem to suggest that ‘children change not because of what they do but as a consequence of what their environment provides’ (Ungar, 2011:5). More emphasis should therefore be placed on ‘installing’ enabling factors in the children’s ecologies to encourage the emergence of resilience. Studies by Elliott et al. (2006) on the effects of neighbourhoods on individual development support the notion of environmental superiority over individual characteristics. In their studies they showed that children coming from advantaged backgrounds exhibited more prosocial behaviours than those coming from disadvantaged backgrounds. Baron and Byrne (2009) also showed that children coming from disadvantaged backgrounds can become so used to suffering that they become insensitive to the suffering of others. To support Elliott et al. (2006) studies by Klebanove, Brooks-Gunn, Chase- Lansdale and Gordon, (1997) also showed a link between children born to low income families and low IQ levels. According to these studies, creating the right environment that ensures success is crucial in achieving successful outcomes in children. The child can therefore become a passive recipient of environmental factors that ensure success and as long as as the environment has features that promote success; the child can manifest resilience characteristics. Successful outcome on the child will largely depend on the ‘resilience of the environment’ (Ungar, 2011:6). According to this view individuals cannot make it on their own, they need an enabling environment to succeed. This notion disagrees with studies that tend to put superiority on individual characteristics. Ungar (2008, 2011) contends that the ability of the child to navigate the social terrain to access resources that ensure well-being has to be matched by the availability of these resources.

However, in poverty stricken environments, where the environments contain limited resources, positive outcomes might depend on the child’s abilty to navigate his ecology scouting and accessing the resources that enable them to survive. Caution should however be taken that this ability to navigate within a negative environment to access resources that result in resilience does not victimise or blame the child who may not have this ability. Studies by Tiet (1998) and Beckett (2006) on resilience factors and adverse life events and on the cognitive outcomes of Romanian adoptees respectively support Ungar’s (2011) submissions and suggest that resilient outcomes in children depend more on the availability and accessibility of resources that are culturally relevant and meaningful to the child. Ungar’s (2011) theory prioritises those factors that enhance resilience in children and ranks them in order of importance. In this prioritised order, the child’s ecology which is the child’s environment comes first, followed by the interactional patterns between the child and the environment, and the child’s strengths takes the third position. It therefore goes without saying then that according to this view, more focus should be on enhancing environmental capacities. This then calls for the decentralisation of individual factors and allow environmental factors to take precedence.

Principle 2 – Complexity

Resilience is a complex phenomenon that encompasses a variety of processes. Focusing only on protective factors and a list of desired outcomes does not do justice to the rich information that resilience studies can generate and contribute to the body of knowledge in child development (Ungar, 2011; Barton, 2005). Individual characteristics change over time and context and therefore cannot be a reliable measure of resilience. It therefore naturally follows that a person cannot be resilient all the times and in different circumstances and longitudinal studies on

resilience are testimonies to this fact (Phelps et al., 2007; Werner & Smith, 1982). Individual capacities and strengths tend to respond to environments that sustain them. For example, if the environment supports the emergence of self confidence, the child tends to acquire this characteristic of self confidence (Phelps et al., 2007). The complexity in the study of resilience comes out of the many processes that need to be taken into consideration when studying the phenomenon of resilience. Researchers need to assess the child’s strengths, environmental capacities and interactional patterns between the two and changes occurring in the individual and in the child’s environment. There should be caution in viewing models of resilience as permanent due to the constant changes in these variables occurring at individual and community levels. Protective factors that enhance resilience have also been found to have differential impact for different people in different contexts and time. Brown (2003) showed that the provision and availability of human services which are protective in nature have greater impact and enhances the resilience of the disadvantaged populations but will not have the same impact on the priviledged.

Principle 3 – Atypicality

According to Ungar (2011) protective factors that lead to resilience, need not be dichotomised or categorised as good or bad. This is because the contextual environments in which protective processes emerge are different. What might be viewed as bad in one context can serve as a protective factor in another context. For example, in early studies on protective factors in African American youth living in unsafe neighbourhoods, Dei, Massuca, McIsaac and Zine (1997) established that dropping out of school though viewed as unhealthy, was in this case a protective factor for the youth. This phenomenon also emerged in the current study where the head of a

CHH’s decision to drop out of school so as to ‘work’ in order to provide for the family, or to engage in transactional sex to get money to buy food for their siblings provide examples of atypical protective factors that ensure the survival of the family in the here and now. This is discussed in detail in chapter five. Hence the notion of atypicality as put forward by Ungar (2008, 2011) cautions people not to use their biased lens when evaluating resilience factors in cultures different from their own. Ungar (2008) referred to these as resilience that was hidden in nature. The atypical nature of these processes has to be viewed from the perspective of the child’s ecology. However, some types of behaviours are not universally acceptable, for example, enaging in transactional sex and dropping out of school. There are some values that are universal due to popular consent, a phenomenon that Ungar (2010) reffered to as cross cultural homogeneity.

Atypicality is also found in unexpected and unanticipated relationships when certain environmental factors that can be considered as risks can be linked to other protective factors (Sameroff, Gutmann & Peck, 2003). In their study of 500 families in Philadelphia, Sameroff et al. (2003) established an association between oppressive policies such as not being given the right to democratic decision making and improved school grades for at risk African American youth. This atypicality of resilience processes also emerged in findings of the current study in that the CHH live in conditions of extreme poverty (risk factor) and this poverty led the children to develop entrepreneurship and networking skills that enabled them to survive. More on this is dicussed in chapter five. Sameroff (2003:387) contended that ‘promotive processes in one context may prove risky in another’. The opposite can also be true, in that risky processes in one context can prove to be protective and promotive in another context. Therefore according to

these submissions resilience can manifest in unusual patterns and behaviours that depend on existing ecologies but might not be socially acceptable. This therefore means that less focus should therefore be given to predetermined resilience outcomes as they change over time and are dependent on individuals’ realities and the conditions they live under. Emphasis should be on the function the behaviour is serving to the individual in a particular context. Positive changes in the environment can alter the decisions that children make in various situations.

Principle 4 – Cultural Ralativity

According to Ungar’s (2008, 2011) ecological theory of resilience, positive adaptation mechanisms are entrenched in cultural systems. Culture refers to shared values and norms that guide a people’s way of life and resilience manifests in culturally relevant ways. The custodians of culture in particular areas are usually asked to provide how resilience can manifest in their respective cultures. It therefore becomes difficult to ignore cultural connotations in resilience studies and a cultural lens has to be used to understand the process of resilience. The atypical nature of resilience discussed in principle 3 is closely related to the cultural relativity principle. This is because resilience tends to manifest differently depending on the existing ecologies and ways of life. The way people navigate and negotiate for resources that promote resilience is influenced by culture (Chen & Rubin, 2011).

Figure 2: An ecological model of factors affecting resilience Sources: Benard (1991); Masten & Powell, (2003)

As illustrated in the diagram above, resilience is a function of a network of bidirectional influences embracing the individual’s inner world of thoughts and feelings, his or her family, school, the immediate community and the wider world. The social environment in which children live have a great impact in determining resilience outcomes. Children need to have plasticity, which is the ability to adapt to their environment and get what they need from that environment (Lerner, 2006). The environment however has to provide what is needed by the child in order to resile. According to Lerner (2006) resilience therefore becomes the prevailing condition of the family, school, community to avail that which is needed for an individual to resile. Ungar (2012) and Theron et al. (2011) concur with this observation. Linked to this model is Bronfenbrenner’s (1989) ecological model of child development shown in Figure 3

Bronfenbrenner’s (1989) theory focuses on child development in the context of their environment and the relationships that exist in that environment. The name of the theory has recently changed from Ecological Theory of Child Development to Bioecological Systems Theory of Child Development. This was necessitated by the need to give emphasis on the child’s own biology being the major environment influencing the child’s development. The interactions that occur between the child’s biology and the outside environment which includes the child’s family, school community and broader societal factors influence the child’s development.

Figure 3 Brofenbreiner’s ecological model of child development

Ecological Model. Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Model describing the environmental influences on a child, Niederer et al. BMC Public Health 2009 9:94

The diagram of the model above explains the interactions clearly. Bronfenbrenner (1989) gives the following submissions about his theory:

1. The child is at the center of this model.

2. The model acknowledges that a child affects and is affected by the settings in which he spends time.

3. The most important setting for a young child is his family, because that is where he spends the most time and because it has the most emotional influence on him. Other important settings may include his extended family, early care and education programmes, health care settings and other community learning sites such as neighbourhoods, libraries and playgrounds.

4. A child’s development is determined by what he experiences in the settings he spends time in. These experiences, called proximal – or near – processes that a child has with the people and objects in these settings are the primary engines of human development (Bronfenbrenner, 1989: 996).

Literature on a number of resilience studies agree with Bronfenbrenner’s (1989) theory because they acknowledge that resilience is an outcome of interactions between the individual child’s characteristics and the supportive social relationships that exist in their environment (Masten, 2012; Ungar, 2010). Ungar (2013) provides details on the complex relationship that exists between Bronfenbrenner’s (1989) theory and the ecological theory of resilience that he came up with.