BeDo

Six months ago, I completed my dissertation on the negative experiences of widening participation students in elite universities. Widening participation is a process by which universities and other institutions recognise that not everyone has the same opportunities to flourish and succeed in education, and to address under-representation and inequalities. It is also as a descriptor of social position, used as an umbrella term for a person’s identity when they are affected by social, financial, cultural or other factors making access to university difficult. This includes (but is not limited to) students from low-income families, deprived areas and low-attaining schools, students in care or who are young carers, and all students from otherwise under-represented groups. 

Having come from a widening participation background myself, my participants’ experiences mattered so much to me and often struck a chord as something I had experienced myself. Sometimes, reading and re-reading their responses in order to analyse the data was overwhelming. Upon reflection, this repeat exposure likely contributed to the stress I was experiencing in the final weeks of the project. During this time, I was also working in hospitality, one of the hardest hit industries during the pandemic, compounding my feelings of stress and overwhelm. I managed to submit my dissertation and keep up with all my shifts, but looking back, I wonder now whether my resilience could have been improved by better strategies for stress management.

An oft quoted piece of self-care advice is treating yourself as you would a young child—listen carefully to understand problems, responding with kindness. This has been on my mind while thinking about resilience. ‘Boingboing’ is a resilience-building framework for children and young people that can also be applied to adults. The framework lays out five key areas of support:

• Basics,
• Belonging,
• Learning,
• Coping, and
• Core self. 

The basics—which include exercise, healthy diet and enough sleep, among others—are a prerequisite for the rest. Without these essentials, it is difficult to prioritise other aspects of building resilience, such as maintaining good relationships, understanding and respecting boundaries, fostering your talents and finding a sense of hope.

When faced with a situation where your capacity to practice strategies outside of the basics category is limited, overall resilience is reduced. When getting enough sleep and exercise, or eating healthy food is the priority, we’re allowed to put other strategies for resilience on the backburner. When finishing my dissertation, I had to focus on maintaining the basics so that I could motivate myself to keep going. Although it meant I could manage my stress enough to complete my project, I was neglecting the deeper senses of resilience. If I had made time to prioritise maintaining more friendships and fostering my talents outside of academia, research suggests that my resilience in facing future stress would have improved.

Beyond my own experiences, scholars out of Brighton (Hart et al, 2016) emphasise that to understand resilience, we must take into account the risk factor affecting marginalised groups. This means considering adversity without holding individuals responsible for it. When thinking about the five key areas mentioned above, someone facing oppression or disadvantage may only be able to establish the basics–surviving on daily wages or finding safe housing. It is important to keep in mind that being unable to develop further resilience is not the fault of the marginalised person. Instead, we must understand that inequality and systemic power imbalances which produce profound disadvantages for individuals can deeply affect their ability to recover from adversity, or ‘bounce back’.

Shelley Harrel, an educator and psychologist out of Pepperdine University, introduces one compelling framework for cultural and context adaptation of resilience interventions among marginalised groups. She emphasises that stress intervention must relate to the person’s cultural background in order to be effective. For marginalised groups to build resilience outside of the basics category, programmes must relate to their values, language and worldviews.

In sum, resilience goes far beyond ‘bouncing back’ from the adversity or stress we’ve faced. It means incorporating all five areas of support, and ensuring that marginalised groups receive tailored services that are culturally appropriate.