Risk and resilience in young adolescents

This exploratory study focused on the role of risk and protective factors in 179 adolescents from a middle and lower income northeastern school district. The protective factors examined were family cohesion, locus of control, mother/father communication, and relationship with a nonparent adult. The study found that the protective factors were powerful predictors of adaptation in their own right independent of risk. Protective factors were found to be highly context specific and there was no evidence of broadly applicable protective factors. Gender was found to be an important aspect of context, and there were significant sex differences. Most strikingly, the study did not find any significant interactions between protective factors and risk for girls or boys. Thus, these results support the growing view that researchers must identify specific rather than global protective factors that provide protection in the space of specific risks for youth in specific life contexts.