The Ideological Trap Of The Advocacy's Discourse On Resilience In Poor Families

Abstract

Family resilience has emerged as an important construct in Positive Psychology. The present qualitative study aimed to investigate family resilience in poverty from the perspective of the advocacy's discourse. Fourteen professionals, seven educators and seven health service workers, were interviewed individually about their experience with who succeed despite The professionals believe that the majority of poor families are not able to overcome poverty. Although they recognize some elements of resilience such as the relational and organizational style of some families, most professionals emphasized that “resilient families” should function according to dominant social norms in order to succeed. It seems that these educational and health social agents have incorporated the ideological facet provoked by the construct of resilience which suggests that poor families are non-resilient a priori.