The research sites involved in the Negotiating Resilience study have been selected based on findings from the International Resilience Project (IRP). Work prior to the Negotiating Resilience study by the IRP identified unique constellations of protective processes leading to positive development. These thematically related processes are:

1. Accessing material resources: The availability of structural provisions, including financial assistance and education, as well as the provision of basic instrumental needs (e.g. food, shelter, clothing, access to medical care, and employment).

2. Experiencing social justice: In the expanding topography of children's relationships, they develop the capacity to both individually and collectively assert their rights. Experiences of prejudice and dynamics of socio-political disenfranchisement may be used as catalysts for conscientization and resistance.

3. Engaging in positive supportive relationships: Relationships include networks of family members, peers, adults in the youth's community, teachers, mentors, role models, intimate partners, and even enemies who can be manipulated to achieve status-related goals such as being perceived as powerful or empathetic.

4. Nurturing a positive identity: A sense of individuality is negotiated through relationships with others. The process of identity formation is one of co-construction through interaction in mutual discursive spaces.

5. Experiencing social and spiritual cohesion: In contrast to the theme of individuality, there is a need to balance one's sense of responsibility to self with duty to one's broader community. This construct of cohesion borrows theoretically from social capital theory.

6. Experiencing power and control: Attachments at multiple ecological levels bring with them the basis for both shared and agentic experiences of the power to make decisions and the experience of sufficient control to enact them.

7. Determining one's cultural adherence: Adherence with, or standing in opposition to, cultural norms requires complex negotiations with caregivers and communities.

No single pattern of resolution to these seven themes was identified during the IRP. Instead, resilience was described as an outcome of the successful negotiation for resolution to all seven themes simultaneously.

The research sites include communities where more than one theme is readily evident, and currently include four sites in Canada, as well as four international sites.


Canadian Sites

1. Halifax, Nova Scotia

2. Montreal, Quebec

3. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

4. Vancouver, British Colombia

International Sites

1. Jinan, China

2. Guwahati, India

3. Vaal Triangle, South Africa

4. Chiang Mai, Thailand