Thresholds of resilience and within- and cross-domain academic achievement among children in poverty

Abstract

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.

Social Support and Academic Achievement of Chinese Low- Income Children: A Mediation Effect of Academic Resilience

“…This study’s findings are consistent with many current findings that academic resilience has a positive effect on children’s academic achievement, regardless of family economic status ( Sattler & Gershoff, 2019 ; D. Wang et al, 2017 ). In addition, though, there are two new findings: academic resilience partially mediated the effect of peer support and fully mediated the effect of teacher support.…”

“…Academic Achievement This study's findings are consistent with many current findings that academic resilience has a positive effect on children's academic achievement, regardless of family economic status (Sattler & Gershoff, 2019;D. Wang et al, 2017).…”

“…This finding is echoed by Ayala and Manzano (2018) , as the impacts of resilience on academic performance varies on students’ gender and their learning motivations. By conducting longitudinal research, Sattler and Gershoff (2019) compared the differences in the impact of three levels of resilience on mathematics and literacy achievement among children from kindergarten to the 5th grade in primary school. Compared with high-resilient children, non-resilience and low-resilience children have significantly lower mathematical and literacy achievement ( Sattler & Gershoff, 2019 ).…”

“…By conducting longitudinal research, Sattler and Gershoff (2019) compared the differences in the impact of three levels of resilience on mathematics and literacy achievement among children from kindergarten to the 5th grade in primary school. Compared with high-resilient children, non-resilience and low-resilience children have significantly lower mathematical and literacy achievement ( Sattler & Gershoff, 2019 ). Among Chinese rural-to-urban migrant adolescents, selfresilience significantly predicted youths’ positive academic emotions ( D. Wang, Hu, & Yin, 2017 ).…”

Familial Risk Factors and Emotional Problems in Early Childhood: The Promotive and Protective Role of Children’s Self-Efficacy and Self-Concept

“…Early familial risks can have detrimental effects on a wide range of developmental outcomes. Potential outcomes encompass brain development, cognitive development, academic development, language development, and emotional development (e.g., Gerhardt, 2006 ; Sylvestre and Mérette, 2010 ; Fay-Stammbach et al, 2014 ; Appleton et al, 2017 ; Mall et al, 2018 ; Sattler and Gershoff, 2019 ). A number of common findings regarding the way that familial risk factors affect child development have been identified ( Masten and Barnes, 2018 ).…”