ABSTRACTWhile involved in organising an empowerment seminar for the Igbo rural youths, the authors investigated resilience among rural adolescents and young adults. Three hundred and twenty nine (329) adolescents (n = 162) and young adults (n = 167), comprising 159 males and 170 females, were participants. They completed the 14-item Resilience scale and provided some relevant demographic information. Analysis Of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test for differences in resilience on account of age, gender and level of education. Young adults had significantly higher resilience scores than adolescents. No significant difference was found in resilience scores of males and females. Participants with higher education had significantly higher resilience scores than those with lower education. Of all the interaction effects tested, only age * gender * education had a significant interaction effect on resilience. Discussion of the findings were based on the literature, realities of life in contemporary Igbo society and the authors' observations.Keywords: Adolescents, Education, Igbo, Resilience, Young Adults1. INTRODUCTIONThe origins of resilience science have deep roots in the history of medicine, psychology and education (Masten, 1989; Masten and Coatsworth, 1998); and it has been recently suggested that resilience science and positive youth development shares a common goal of promoting positive development (Masten, 2014). However, it was around 1970 that systematic investigations of resilience emerged within the wider interdisciplinary field of developmental psychopathology-the study of behavioural health and adaptation from a developmental perspective (Masten and Coatsworth, 1998; Masten, 2006). The growing emphasis on resilience in behavioural health and adaptation signals a fundamental shift from deficit-oriented frameworks to asset-enhancing or strength-based approaches (Epps and Jackson, 2000). In this developmental research context, resilience is the process of, capacity for or outcome of successful adaptation despite challenging or threatening circumstances (Masten et al., 1990). The resilience construct opened up the possibility of studying strengths and to design programmes that build capacity and competence rather than address risks. Hence across research and practice, a growing body of work has used resilience as a framework to understand individual responses to stress as well as important contributors to healthy development across the lifespan (Luthar et al., 2000). Therefore, promoting resilience may pave the way for long term outcomes by enhancing the chances of positive adaptations in future, even if optimal environmental conditions for growth are unattainable (Newman and Blackburn, 2002; Newman, 2004; Riches et al., 2009).Resilience is a quality that shapes the way individuals cope with adversity (Liddle, 1994). It is also the ability to recover effectively from daily stress and challenges of life (Ryff et. al., 1998; Davda, 2011). Wagnild and Young (1990) delineated five underlying characteristics of resilience to include meaningful life/purpose, perseverance, equanimity, self-reliance and existential aloneness, which have also been discussed elsewhere (Wagnild 2011; Davda, 2011; Ifeagwazi et. al., 2014). Such resilient attitudes have also been observed in earlier studies (Wanberg and Banas, 2000; Warner, 2009). These characteristics become relevant to young persons in fostering adaptive capacity because compared to other groups, adolescents and young adults often bear the consequences of inadequate social resources and hardship. Apparently, a resilience-based approach to positive life adaptation is people-focused and reflects the distinct capacities and coping mechanisms of various socio-demographic groups as well as other contextually relevant variables (Ungar, 2008; GSCP, 2013). Context in this sense embraces the broad social/environmental conditions such as education, geography, culture and so on. …