Abstract:
Many learners living in townships require protection and resilience to overcome
obstacles and adversities in their context of development. The literature on resilience
indicates strongly that resilience is embedded systemically. In the absence of constructive
and supportive conditions in the home environment, the school would
logically appear to be the next resource in line to be tapped. We investigated the
contribution of two South African township schools to the resilience of their middleadolescent
learners. Case studies with focus groups of resilient and less-resilient
Grade 9 learners were used, following the Interactive Qualitative Analysis method,
to determine the participants’ perceptions of how the school contributes to the
degree and nature of their resilience. The influence of the school varied depending
on the degree of the learners’ resilience, but also depending on factors within the
school itself, suggesting that schools play a distinctive and determining role. Contributions
particularly highlighted included creation, or failure to create, a supportive
teaching and learning environment with effective implementation of rules and educational
policy to provide care and safety for its learners and develop them to reach
their future goals. Resilient learners were more ready than less resilient learners to
acknowledge and utilise these characteristics. All focus groups placed much emphasis
on goal attainment, suggesting a strong relationship with resilience.
