Social Ecology of Resilience

Michael Ungar, Ph.D. is the author of 9 books and more than 70 articles and book chapters. His works include The We Generation:Raising Socially Responsible Kids, Too Safe for Their Own Good: How Risk and Responsibility Help Teens Thrive, Counseling in Challenging Contexts,and Strengths-based Counseling with At-risk Youth. He has practiced for over 25 years as a Social Worker and Marriage and Family Therapist with children and families in child welfare, mental health, educational and correctional settings. Now a University Research Professor, and Professor at the School of Social Work, at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, he leads an international team of resilience researchers that spans more than a dozen countries on six continents. In addition to his research and writing interests, Dr. Ungar maintains a small family therapy practice for troubled children, youth and their families.

• I. Introduction to the Theory.- Social Ecologies and their Contribution to Resilience.- Resilience: Causal Pathways and Social Ecology.- Theory and Measurement of Resilience: Views from Development.- Resilience and Children's Work in Brazil: Lesson from Physics for Psychology.- II. Five Interviews.- An Interview with Macalane Malindi: The Impact of Education and Changing Social Policy on Resilience During Apartheid and Post-Apartheid in South Africa.- An Interview with Bill Strickland: How Community-based Adult Educational Facilities can Lift People out of Poverty in Urban America.- An Interview with Jude Simpson: Growing Beyond a Life of Abuse and Gang Involvement in New Zealand.- An Interview with Vicki Durrant: Creating a Community Program for High-Risk Aboriginal Youth in Canada's North.- An Interview with Arn Chorn-Pond: Helping Children in Cambodia Through the Revival of Traditional Music and Art.- III. The Individual (in context).- From Neurons to Social Context: Restoring Resilience as a Capacity for Good Survival.- Situating Resilience in Developmental Context.- Temporal and Contextual Dimensions to Individual Positive Development: A Developmental-Contextual Systems Model of Resilience.- Girls' Violence: Criminality or Resilience?- IV. The Family.- Facilitating Family Resilience: Relational Resources for Positive Youth Development in Conditions of Adversity.- Contexts of Vulnerability and Resilience: Childhood Maltreatment, Cognitive Functioning and Close Relationships.- Averting Child Maltreatment: Individual, Economic, Social and Community Resources that Promote Resilient Parenting.- Caring Relationships: How to Promote Resilience in Challenging Times.- Young People, Their Families and Social Supports: Understanding Resilience with Complexity Theory.- V. The School.-Local Resources and Distal Decisions: The Political Ecology of Resilience.- Caring Teachers: Teacher-youth Transactions to Promote Resilience.- Children with Disabilities and SupportiveSchool Ecologies.- Resilience in Schools and Curriculum Design.- VI. The Community.- How Prior Social Ecologies Shape Family Resilience Amongst Refugees in U.S.Resettlement.- Young People, Sexual Orientation, and Resilience.- Community Resilience: Fostering Recovery, Sustainability, and Growth.- The Social Ecology of Resilience in War-Affected Youth: A Longitudinal Study from Sierra Leone.- Traveling Through Social Support and Youth Civic Action on a Journey Towards Resilience.- VII. Culture.-Understanding Culture and Resilience: The Production of Hope.- Case Study: Promoting Community Resilience with Local Values - Greenland's Paamiut Asasara.- Toward an Ecology of Stories: Indigenous Perspectives on Resilience.- Macro, Meso and Micro Perspectives of Resilience During and After Exposure to War.- Predictors of resilient psychosocial functioning in Western Australian Aboriginal Young People Exposed to High Family-level Risk.