Editorial : Social and physical ecologies for child resilience : wisdom from Asia and Africa

Abstract

The past five decades have seen significant advancements in child and youth resilience research. However, there can be no room for complacency as the wellbeing of the next generation is continuously thwarted by “large-scale volatilities”, including global economic shocks, geopolitical tensions, the climate emergency, and persistent social inequalities. Hence, we urgently need a proactive approach to build resilience in future generations. It is this urgency that prompted this Research Topic, which explores the “ecologies” that nurture child and youth resilience in Africa and Asia. While Africa and Asia constitute the bulk of human society and are particularly vulnerable to volatilities, they are under-represented in the resilience literature (Theron and van Breda, 2021). This Research Topic is, therefore, crucial to redress the problem of a “marginalized majority” in the production of knowledge about child and youth resilience. In this Research Topic, the term “child and youth” is used to denote the age group of 3–26. It is by no means our intention to lump together young people as a monolithic whole. The use of “child and youth” here cannot be treated as a homogenizing concept but as a pragmatic terminology to cover the age range of the research samples of the different studies included in this Research Topic.