A HOLISTIC PERSPECTIVE OF THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF RESILIENCE

Doing research in the field of resilience can prove to be a rather challenging attempt for a scientist, as long as perspectives are multiple, the consensus regarding resilience boundaries is limited, and the reality is complex and multi-level. The aim of this research was to investigate the conceptual framework of resilience in case of children and adolescents and to perform a pilot study in order to identify the core concepts/protective factors of resilient development. The theoretical inquiry aims at determining controversial difficulties in selecting protective factors, while the qualitative approach focuses on the methodological process of categorization, through which protective factors, regarding resilience in children and adolescents were analysed. The practical investigation relied on the empirical literature which provided summaries or lists of variables considered to be protective factors. Study results identified core protective factors in the individual, family or social domain that seem to count the most for resilience development. Future research should integrate contradicting views into a holistic resilience model and take into account the multiple problems identified in literature in order to improve the understanding of protective factors against adversity.