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A critical review of resilience theory and its relevance for social work

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Adrian D. Van Breda at University of Johannesburg
Adrian D. Van Breda
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As resilience theory gains traction as a theoretical framework for research in social work, it is important to engage with it critically. This article provides a critical review of resilience theory, drawing on an array of key authors, dating back fifty years. The review addresses three aspects of resilience theory: its definition, the construction of adversity and outcomes, and the nature and scope of resilience processes. The relevance of resilience theory for social work in South Africa is evaluated according to three criteria: the research questions it generates, its contribution to indigenous knowledge and decolonisation, and its contribution to social development.
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... Resilience theory is used within different fields of research ranging from social sciences [18] to public management, economy, engineering [19], ecological [20] and environmental sciences [21]. The resilience approach is often considered a subset of an overarching science, e.g., sustainability [21] or economics as enterprise risk management [19]. ...
... Specific Resilience concerns resilience of what to what and for whom, but also over what timeframe, whereas General Resilience is for the unknown and the unknowable and thus the capacity to handle complexity and uncertainties [21,23]. Even more, resilience is often treated as either a reactive processresponse to an adversity, 'After-Event' -or it is considered as a concept of several subdimensions including preventive (anticipation/preparedness) and resistive (resist and absorb or 'mitigation') actions -'Before and After-Event' [18,19]. A van Breda [18], notes that resilience research comprises three interconnected components: adversity, mediating factors, and outcome, shown in Fig. 2. It is impossible to analyse resilience without considering all three. ...
... Even more, resilience is often treated as either a reactive processresponse to an adversity, 'After-Event' -or it is considered as a concept of several subdimensions including preventive (anticipation/preparedness) and resistive (resist and absorb or 'mitigation') actions -'Before and After-Event' [18,19]. A van Breda [18], notes that resilience research comprises three interconnected components: adversity, mediating factors, and outcome, shown in Fig. 2. It is impossible to analyse resilience without considering all three. This highlights the differentiation between 'Resilience' as the process of mitigating adversities and 'Resilient' as the outcome yielding hardiness or improved abilities. ...
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Article
Full-text available
  • Mar 2025
  • RENEW SUST ENERG REV
Energy systems around the world are undergoing structural and contextual changes following a global increase of electricity use, higher sector integration, changing security landscape, and growing share of renewable energy. These developments are changing the dynamics of systems, questioning the resilience of future energy systems. Viewing resilience as a process of preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery, this study performs a systematic literature review over how different phases are covered in research on resilient energy systems with a focus on the integration of renewable energy. This study also reviews grey literature to assess how Sweden and the EU are attempting to build resilience. Findings show a focus on energy security originating in the western world and few studies within the reviewed papers consider and measures all phases of the resilience process. Most academic papers focus on mitigation and an underrepresentation of studies evaluating recovery capabilities. Comparatively, grey literature shows a preparedness for sudden shocks, and less for more pervasive disturbances. The novelty of the review lies in its identification of discrepancies between the stated analysis of resilience aspects and their quantification in the reviewed papers. The study also presents a novel method of quantifying resilience in an energy system by including all phases of the resilience process. This study contributes to SDG 9.a, by showcasing the lack of representation of the global South and proposing and demonstrating a generic index which supports resilient infrastructure development regardless of geography.
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... This could be through the prioritization of sustainable resilience mechanisms in real-world disaster experiences and experiential learning among various social groups. Focusing on vulnerable social groups, such as women, helps in the creation of gender-inclusive approaches that prioritize these susceptible, socio-culturally and economically vulnerable communities/ groups [13,[16][17][18][19]20]. ...
... This implies that the scope of analysis and study focus entails four aspects of disaster response, including (i) response after a disaster, (ii) mitigation of recurrence, (iii) adaptation to current and emerging disasters, and (iv) building of sustainable safeguards to future disasters. By using 'gender' as a basis to understand how disaster response could be achieved, a recognition of scholarly and policy insights geared towards genderinclusive strategies could be streamlined [1,19,[21][22][23]. This is partly because studies have revealed that gender injustice and social vulnerability to disasters, such as climate change, are exacerbated when (i) there is limited clarity on the conceptualization of gender or (ii) where social injustices that target social categories like Indigenous communities and women is rife [24,25]. ...
Gender perspectives in disaster response: An evidence-based review
Article
Full-text available
  • Mar 2025
An in-depth understanding of diverse gender perspectives, pathways, and frameworks is pivotal for innovative and successful disaster response and resilience strategies across geographies. However, in most regions, gender perspectives in driving disaster resilience are either less operationalized, explored in research, or fragmented, creating unsustainable futures. The ramifications of these inequalities were foregrounded by the COVID-19 pandemic where the disproportionate vulnerability of individuals/genders became unavoidable. This reifies the need to create safety nets within disaster-resilient landscapes based on a gender-inclusive lens. In this study, 80 documents were systematically reviewed to explore the current and emerging gender perspectives (individual and institutional) towards disaster response and resilience mechanisms across geographies and over time. Findings highlight theoretical and conceptual deficits in the definition of gender and disaster response in the discourses. Additionally, disasters and disaster-induced impacts vary over time across genders and regions. They also reveal disproportionate disaster vulnerability among gender minorities and historically marginalized social groups. Furthermore, socioeconomic gender inequalities limit collective agency in disaster response while socio-cultural and patriarchal norms lead to uneven disaster response that are further reinforced by gender inequalities that lead to structural violence. Increased vulnerability to disasters increases fear and mistrust of existing institutional disaster management strategies. Response to Normative disaster management frameworks that entrench masculine dominance in disaster response through, emerging frameworks that draw from a critical feminist lens unfortunately feminize vulnerability and adversely limit gender-inclusive futures. It is acknowledged that place and social capital shape people's willingness to engage in disaster response across genders and regions. Therefore, collective social agency, social networks, and gender inclusion are catalytic towards the efficacy of disaster response and community resilience. Risk Communication for effective disaster response should leverage community institutions like schools, digital media platforms, and indigenous knowledge carriers to generate, mediate, and disseminate appropriate risk information. Five key strategies could drive gender-inclusive perspectives in disaster response and resilience, including (i) conducting context-based studies and research, (ii) use of novel research approaches, such as reflexive social learning, (iii) prioritizing incorporation of collective agency in policy and institutional frameworks, (iv) a research shift and focus towards uncovering the histories of vulnerability, and (v) development of transparent and feasible knowledge dissemination mechanisms. Increased participatory evidence-based research is needed, and policy frameworks must emphasize key pillars of disaster response and integrate them with emerging perspectives on gender empowerment, (e.g., in social, economic, psychological, scientific/technological, institutional, and environmental) arenas.
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... Resilience is challenging to define and lacks a standardized definition (Angevaare et al., 2020). Nonetheless, consensus is strengthening that an operable definition of resilience should incorporate three elements: adversity, outcome, and mechanisms (Angevaare et al., 2020;IJntema et al., 2023;Van Breda, 2018). Firstly, adversity can be defined as "particular (often extraordinary) embodied and emplaced circumstances in people's lives that cause pain, disruption, exhaustion, disorientation, loneliness, and grief" (Power et al., 2019, p. 2). ...
“From my life, she will never be gone, even though she is no longer here” – a single case interpretative phenomenological analysis on spousal loss and resilience
Article
Full-text available
  • Mar 2025
Older people often face drastic life events, such as spousal loss, that profoundly affect their daily lives. Consequently, resilience—how one navigates life’s changes to avoid further adverse outcomes—is increasingly relevant in ageing studies. Although understanding older adults’ resilience is key to preventing adverse outcomes, the complexity of loss-related events and everyday resilience in later life is underexplored from a process-based perspective. This study employs an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) case study of one individual to investigate resilience in response to spousal loss from a process-based perspective. Four interviews were conducted with this one participant and data was analysed following IPA guidelines. Findings indicate how resilience, in this case, resembles a process of continuous adaptation and renewal or “bouncing forward”, in the face of diverse adversities, as written by Bourbeau. This study enriches our understanding of the process-based perspective on resilience, which is essential for concretely defining resilience and its practical application.
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... It explores how survivors demonstrate resilience as they navigate the complex process of recovery and healing after enduring severe trauma. For this study, we adopted Van Breda's (2018) definition of resilience, which identifies three essential components: adversity, outcomes, and mediating factors [44]. Van Breda conceptualizes resilience as a dynamic process that produces specific outcomes, with the relationship between adversity and outcomes profoundly shaped by mediating processes. ...
“After torture, everything changed”: the unpacking of trauma from torture with interpretative phenomenological analysis and Merleau-Ponty’s theory of the lived body
Article
Full-text available
  • Mar 2025
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... lastly, cultural norms and values may affect how parents perceive their role in rehabilitation. in some cultures, there may be stigma associated with having a child in conflict with the law, leading to emotional distancing or reduced involvement (Van Breda, 2018). ...
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Article
Full-text available
  • Mar 2025
Most studies acknowledge that parents help or hinder the child in conflict with the law (CICL) rehabilitation. In the Philippines, there is no clear and consistent model of parental involvement in CICL rehabilitation. Thus, there is a need to explore the experiences of social workers with CICLs’ parents’ involvement during the rehabilitation of the CICL. This study utilized a qualitative approach specifically the case study design. In-depth interviews were conducted to eleven (11) parents, fourteen (14) social workers, and twelve (12) CICLs. Participants reported that parents were either a success or a challenge in CICL rehabilitation. At the same time, the factors influencing parental involvement in the rehabilitation of the CICL are parental burden, parental attitude toward the rehabilitation program, and parent-child relationships. In conclusion, a holistic family approach is crucial for the rehabilitation of children in conflict with the law (CICL). Social workers must engage both the child and their family in this process. Active involvement from parents is essential, and developing flexible, supportive engagement strategies can improve their participation. Furthermore, parental education programs and initiatives aimed at strengthening the parent-child relationship are vital for creating a positive rehabilitation environment and ensuring long-term success.
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‘We Are Raising Our Voices’: Coping Strategies Used by Khwaja Sira in Swat, Pakistan
Article
  • Mar 2025
  • INT J PSYCHOL
This study explores coping strategies used by khwaja sira, a third‐gender community, in Swat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. We conducted 45 semi‐structured, in‐depth interviews with khwaja sira in Mingora, Swat. Interviews were conducted in Pashto, digitally audio recorded, transcribed and translated directly into English, and analysed using thematic content analysis. Applying coping theory, we identified five major themes in the interview transcripts: (1) creating community with other khwaja sira; (2) navigating safety in sex work; (3) managing interpersonal relationships; (4) increasing awareness about transgender rights; (5) trusting in kismet. Findings demonstrate how the khwaja sira community utilises a range of individual and collective coping strategies to manage experiences of social marginalisation.
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Character Strength, Resilience, and Teacher Performance: Their Relationships
Article
  • May 2024
With the issuance of the Basic Education Development Plan (BEDP) 2030, the Department of Education’s medium-term plan, character strength, resilience, and teacher performance are now considered priority research themes by the Department. This study examined the relationship between character strength, resilience, and teacher performance of public elementary school teachers in Sanchez Mira, Cagayan. Employing a descriptive-correlational design, data were gathered thru questionnaires from 113 teachers across the 19 public elementary schools in Sanchez Mira District. Character strength domains assessed encompassed wisdom, humanity, justice, and temperance, while the types of resilience included physical, institutional, educational, and psychological resilience. The teacher’s performance was consistent with the teachers’ Individual Performance Commitment Rating Form (IPCRF) for SY 2022-2023. Statistical analyses revealed that teachers exhibit wisdom, humanity, justice, temperance, and character strength to a great extent. Similarly, physical, institutional, educational, and psychological resilience are also largely demonstrated. Conversely, teacher performance is not significantly related to wisdom, humanity, justice, temperance, and character strength as a whole, and teacher performance has no significant relationship with physical resilience, institutional resilience, educational resilience, psychological resilience, and resilience as a whole signifying that the concerned character strength domains and types of resilience do not affect a teacher’s proficiency in using a range of teaching strategies, managing classroom structure, planning, managing, and implementing learning processes, designing, selecting, organizing, and using various assessment strategies, and in setting professional development goals. A highly significant positive relationship, however, exists between all the types of resilience and all the character strength domains. This is a resounding manifestation of the role of a teacher’s character in the formation of his/her fighting spirit.
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The roles of agency and structure in facilitating the successful transition out of care and into independent living
Article
Full-text available
  • Jul 2016
The vulnerability of young people leaving residential care has been widely noted in the literature, prompting research on the process of transitioning out of care and triggering debates between the roles of agency and structure in youth transitions. Care-leaving research and programmes from the West have tended to give primary attention to structural interventions, centred on the notion of ‘corporate parenting’. By contrast, South African research on care-leaving has tended to emphasise the agency of young people in exercising resilience in sub-optimal contexts. This article analyses findings from recent South African care-leaving research on the contributions of agency (particularly resilience at the micro level) and structure (particularly interventions at the macro level) to the successful transition out of care and into independent living. Evidence confirms the importance of considering both agency and structure, as well as the interaction between them.
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COPING, RESILIENCE AND POSTTRAUMATIC GROWTH: ADVERSE CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES AND SOCIAL WORK STUDENTS
Article
Full-text available
  • Jul 2016
This qualitative case study explored the perceptions of third-year social work students at a selected university in South Africa regarding the effects of having endured adverse childhood experiences. Findings showed the beginnings of positive life lessons that can emerge from having endured adverse experiences. Findings also confirmed the process of coping with these experiences that included outcomes of resilience and burgeoning posttraumatic growth. Implications are discussed especially regarding the place and development of coping, resilience and posttraumatic growth in social work education and social work practice. Recommendations include the professional use of self and self-awareness through mindfulness teaching practices.
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Uniting Resilience Research and Practice With an Inequalities Approach
Article
Full-text available
  • Dec 2016
The concept of resilience has evolved, from an individual-level characteristic to a wider ecological notion that takes into account broader person–environment interactions, generating an increased interest in health and well-being research, practice and policy. At the same time, the research and policy-based attempts to build resilience are increasingly under attack for responsibilizing individuals and maintaining, rather than challenging, the inequitable structure of society. When adversities faced by children and young people result from embedded inequality and social disadvantage, resilience-based knowledge has the potential to influence the wider adversity context. Therefore, it is vital that conceptualizations of resilience encompass this potential for marginalized people to challenge and transform aspects of their adversity, without holding them responsible for the barriers they face. This article outlines and provides examples from an approach that we are taking in our research and practice, which we have called Boingboing resilience. We argue that it is possible to bring resilience research and practice together with a social justice approach, giving equal and simultaneous attention to individuals and to the wider system. To achieve this goal, we suggest future research should have a co-produced and inclusive research design that overcomes the dilemma of agency and responsibility, contains a socially transformative element, and has the potential to empower children, young people, and families.
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The Social Ecology of Resilience, A Handbook of Theory and Practice
Book
  • Jan 2012
More than two decades after Michael Rutter (1987) published his summary of protective processes associated with resilience, researchers continue to report definitional ambiguity in how to define and operationalize positive development under adversity. The problem has been partially the result of a dominant view of resilience as something individuals have, rather than as a process that families, schools,communities and governments facilitate. Because resilience is related to the presence of social risk factors, there is a need for an ecological interpretation of the construct that acknowledges the importance of people's interactions with their environments. The Social Ecology of Resilience provides evidence for this ecological understanding of resilience in ways that help to resolve both definition and measurement problems. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012. All rights reserved.
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Cultural Pathways to Resilience: Opportunities and Obstacles as Recalled by Black South African Students
Chapter
  • Oct 2015
In this chapter we present the life-stories of Harmony and Atile to illustrate that young people’s resilience processes are not arbitrary. Harmony and Atile are black South African students who demonstrated positive development, despite chronic poverty and associated risks (e.g., sexual abuse). A secondary data analysis of their life-stories shows how traditional African culture (i.e., Ubuntu) shaped which processes Harmony and Atile prioritised, and how these processes played out. Specifically, constructive connections to a broad network of supportive people, tolerance, and educational agency informed their positive adjustment. One could argue that these mechanisms embody universally reported resilience processes (e.g., attachment, meaning-making, agency and mastery, etc.). However, their stories offer evidence that connecting to familial and non-familial kin, being long-suffering, and pursuing a tertiary education were culturally-congruent processes. Essentially, Harmony’s and Atile’s allegiance to Ubuntu-aligned values and practices shaped which universal resilience mechanisms they prioritised and how these mechanisms of resilience operationalised. Simultaneously, their stories caution against romanticised and/or static accounts of how culture matters for resilience, and flag the need for longitudinal studies of how culture and resilience intertwine.
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Family resilience in low income communities: A case study of an informal settlement in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: Family resilience in low income countries
Article
  • Oct 2016
Many of the people who are most vulnerable to the effects of poverty and deprivation reside in informal settlements in Africa. While there is growing evidence of the importance of family resilience, there is little documented evidence of how collective actions undertaken by families in African communities can contribute to this. In-depth interviews and focus-group sessions were conducted with single mothers residing in an informal settlement in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa to delineate the factors that contributed to their resilience. We examined the influence of social ties, self-efficacy and networks they had established beyond their immediate community on enhancing family resilience. Three key themes are discussed: determination to survive, rising above harsh economic conditions and establishing networks within and outside the community. We conclude that the foundation for building strong female-headed families lies in positive social ties, self-empowerment initiatives and tapping on established networks within and outside low income communities.
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