Vicarious Resilience: An Exploration of Teachers and Children’s Resilience in Highly Challenging Social Contexts

Abstract

This study explores the formulation of vicarious resilience as a useful concept in the middle school age school educational arena. It addresses the question of how teachers who work with learners who experienced dislocation and adversity are affected by the children’s stories of resilience. It focuses on the teachers’ interpretations of their learners’ stories, and how they make sense of the impact these stories have had on their lives. Twenty-one teachers who work in accelerated learning programs in Cali, Colombia, were interviewed about their perceptions of their learners’ overcoming of adversity. Data were analyzed through the Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) methodology to describe the themes that speak about the effects of witnessing how learners coped constructively with adversity. These themes are discussed to advance the concept of vicarious resilience and how it can contribute to sustaining and empowering teachers dealing with challenging children and trauma.