Transforming adversity into opportunity : how resilience can promote quality education amidst conflict and violence

Education systems in countries at all levels of development increasingly need to manage the challenges of crisis, conflict, and violence. For more than 40 years, research into resilience has sought to understand how positive outcomes (such as mental and physical health, positive interpersonal relations, socially acceptable behavior, academic success, etc.) can result across a wide range of adverse conditions. In the field of education, resilience studies provide evidence that many students succeed academically despite adverse economic conditions (Gamerzy, Masten, and Tellegen 1984; Rutter 1987; Benard, 2004; Gizir and Aydin 2009), homelessness and transitory situations ,violence and conflict affected settings (Boyden 2003; Ungar 2005 and 2012), and social exclusion (Borma and Overman 2004). Resilience matters in education because not only is learning and school success possible in spite of adversity, education can also be the vehicle to overcome that adversity.