Thresholds of Resilience and Within- and Cross-Domain Academic Achievement among Children in Poverty

Growing up in poverty increases the likelihood of maladaptive development. Yet, some children are able to overcome the adversity of poverty and demonstrate resilience. Currently, there is limited agreement among researchers about how to operationalize resilience, both in terms of who should be the comparison group against whom at-risk children are compared and in terms of what developmental domains of resilience are most predictive of later positive development. The present study investigated how different thresholds and domains of resilience at school entry were associated with within-domain and cross-domain academic achievement across elementary school. Using a nationally representative and longitudinal sample, the results demonstrated that children who reached a high threshold of resilience at entry to kindergarten had similar mathematics and literacy achievement throughout elementary school as academically competent children not in poverty. Additionally, cross-domain associations were found for both mathematics and literacy resilience predicting later achievement. These findings have important research and intervention implications for promoting positive academic development among children in poverty.