The influence of township schools on the resilience of their learners

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