Resilience processes within the school context of adolescents with sexual violence history

Abstract

Abstract: This study examines the school context of adolescents with a sexual violence history, highlighting their perceptions of protective and vulnerability mechanisms within a social ecological resilience framework. The study was conducted in a youth service agency located in a mid-sized city in the inner of Sao Paulo state. Initially, 31 male and female adolescents victims of sexual violence, aged 12-18, answered survey items assessing resilience processes. Based on their responses, a subgroup of seven adolescents was selected to participate in individual semi-structured interviews addressing the role of school in their lives. Five key themes were identified in the data, with two overarching categories emerging: ‘evaluation of school structure’ and ‘formative processes through diversity and difference’. Exploration of interview excerpts within these categories revealed that schools occupy an ambivalent space in terms of risk and protective factors in the participants’ lives, with predominately negative social indicators emerging.