Abstract
Many researchers working with children in materially poor communities in Ethiopia have observed that they report high levels of well-being, for example, they are happy and satisfied with their lives. This is taken as an example of resilience, or what may be defined as the capacity to bounce back from adverse experiences. While many Euro-American studies attribute resilience to individual competencies such as self-confidence, in the context of Ethiopia and other developing countries social competencies may be more important. Social competencies enable children to construct networks that extend beyond peer friendships and school-based networks. Their extensive networks mean they can access resources and convert these into well-being outcomes such as being well-nourished. However, their networks can be simultaneously advantageous and disadvantageous; for example, when children feel obliged to leave school to contribute to the household. The paper presents a mixed-method case-based analysis of four children aged 14–15 living in urban Ethiopia who were characterised by the author as more or less ‘resilient’ on the basis of survey data from Young Lives, a long-term study of childhood poverty. It uses survey and qualitative data to present a detailed account of these children’s pathways to well-being and the complex role of social connections within these pathways.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The qualitative data comprises transcribed conversations and group discussions with children, fieldworkers’ observations, and individual and group interviews with caregivers and teachers.
The translation of the ladder question was validated through its use with adults in the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey http://www.csae.ox.ac.uk/datasets/Ethiopia-ERHS/ERHS-main.html.
Semira scores 7 which is considerably above the mean. This could relate to her household’s wealth, the extent of the support she identifies as available to her, or her religious faith.
Injera is a sour-dough pancake which is the staple food in Ethiopia.
On 11/01/11, 1 USD = 16.56 ETB.
References
Abebe, T. (2008). Ethiopian childhoods: A case study of the lives of orphans and working children. Published Doctoral Thesis No. 48, Norway, NTNU.
Abebe, T., & Kjorholt, A. T. (2009). Social actors and victims of exploitation: Working children in the cash economy of Ethiopia’s South. Childhood, 16, 175–194.
Appadurai, A. (2004). The capacity to aspire: Culture and the terms of recognition. In V. Rao & M. Walton (Eds.), Culture and public action (pp. 59–84). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education. New York: Greenwood Press.
Boyden, J. (2009). Risk and capability in the context of adversity: Children’s contributions to household livelihoods in Ethiopia. Children, Youth and Environments, 192, 111–137.
Boyden, J., & Cooper, E. (2006). Questioning the power of resilience: Are children up to the task of disrupting the transmission of poverty? CPRC Working Paper 73.
Burton, L. M., Allison, K. W., Obeidallah, D. Crockett, L. J., & Crouter, A. C. (1995). Social context and adolescence: Perspectives on development among inner-city African-American teens. In Pathways through adolescence: Relation to social contexts, Erlbaum, NJ. pp. 119–138.
Camfield, L. (2010). Stew without bread or bread without stew: Children’s understandings of poverty in Ethiopia. Children and Society, 24, 271–281.
Camfield, L., Streuli, N., & Woodhead, M. (2009). What’s the use of ‘well-being’ in contexts of child poverty? Approaches to research, monitoring and children’s participation. International Journal of Children’s Rights, 171, 65–109.
Camfield, L., & Tafere, Y. (2009). No, living well does not mean being rich’: Diverse understandings of well-being among children in three Ethiopian communities. Journal of Children and Poverty, 152, 119–138.
Cantril, H. (1965). The pattern of human concerns. NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Carrey, N., & Ungar, M. (2007). Resilience. Monograph for the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 162, 271–540.
Clark, D. A. (2007). Adaptation, poverty and well-being: Some issues and observations with special reference to the capability approach and development studies. GPRG-WPS-081.
Cooper E. (2009). Children audit adults’ love: What parents’ spending of time and money tell children about their belonging. Paper presented at Young Lives International Conference, Oxford, St Anne’s College, 25–27 March 2009.
Cowen, E. L., Wyman, P. A., Work, W. C., & Parker, G. R. (1990). The rochester child resilience project RCRP: Overview and summary of first year findings. Development and Psychopathology, 2, 193–212.
Crivello, G., Camfield, L., & Woodhead, M. (2009). How can children tell us about their well-being? Exploring the potential of participatory research approaches within Young Lives. Social Indicators Research, 90, 51–72.
Dawes, Q., Tredoux, C., & Feinstein, A. (1989). Political violence in South Africa: Some effects on children of the violent destruction of their community. International Journal of Mental Health, 182, 16–43.
De Vries, M. W. (1984). Temperament and infant mortality among the Masai of East Africa. American Journal of Psychiatry, 141, 1189–1194.
Evans, R. (2005). Tanzania. social networks, migration, and care in Tanzania Caregivers’ and children’s resilience to coping with HIV/AIDS. Journal of Children and Poverty, 112, 111–129.
Fine, B. (2005). If social capital is the answer, we have the wrong questions. In Social capital, civil renewal & ethnic diversity (pp. 75–82). London, Runnymede Trust.
Harris, J., & De Renzio, P. (1997). Missing link’ or analytically missing? The concept of social capital: An introductory bibliographic essay. Journal of International Development, 9, 919–937.
Hart, J. (2004). Children’s participation in humanitarian action: Learning from zones of armed conflict, synthesis report prepared for the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Oxford: University of Oxford, Refugee Studies Centre.
Heissler, K. (2009). On being good in Bangladesh: Child labour migration and choice in Madhupur Upazila. Unpublished PhD thesis. Oxford, University of Oxford.
Henderson, P. C. (2006). South African AIDS Orphans: Examining assumptions around vulnerability from the perspective of rural children and youth. Childhood, 133, 303–327.
Hetherington, E. M. (1989). Coping with family transitions: Winners, losers, and survivors. Child Development, 60, 1–14.
Kaplan, H. B. (1999). Toward an understanding of resilience: A critical review of definitions and models. In Glantz MD, Johnson JR (Eds.), Resilience and development: Positive life adaptations (pp. 17–83). New York, Plenum.
Kim-Cohen, J. (2007). Resilience and developmental psychopathology. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 16, 271–283.
Lippman, L. H., Anderson Moore, K., McIntosh, H. (2009). Positive Indicators of Child Well-being: A conceptual framework, measures and methodological issues. Innocenti Working Papers 2009-21.
Luthar, S. (1991). Vulnerability and resilience: A study of high-risk adolescents. Child Development, 62, 600–616.
Luthar, S. (1993). Annotation: Methodological and conceptual issues in research on childhood resilience. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 34, 441–453.
Mann, G. (2010). Finding a life’ among undocumented congolese refugee children in Tanzania’. Paper presented at Young Lives Global Challenges Symposium. (December 2008).
Masten, A., & Coatsworth, J. D. (1998). The development of competence in favorable and unfavorable environments: Lessons from research on successful children. American Psychologist, 53, 205–220.
McAdam-Crisp, J. (2006). Factors that can enhance and limit resilience for children of war. Childhood, 134, 459–477.
Morrow, V. (1999). Conceptualising social capital in relation to the well-being of children and young people: A critical review. The Sociological Review, 47, 744–765.
Morrow, V. (2004). Networks and neighbourhoods: Children’s accounts of friendship, family and place. In Phillipson C, Allan G and Morgan D (Eds.), Social networks and social exclusion: sociological and policy issues (pp. 50–71). Ashgate, Aldershot.
Morrow, V. (2009). The impact of Young Lives on children, families and communities: Some ethical dilemmas. Young lives working paper series #53.
Navarro, V. (2000). A critique of social capital. International Journal of Health Services, 323, 423–432.
Parker, G. R., Cowen, E. L., Work, W. C., & Wyman, P. A. (1990). Test correlates of stress resilience among urban school children. Journal of Primary Prevention, 11, 19–35.
Poluha, E. (Ed.). (2007). The world of girls and boys in rural and urban Ethiopia. Addis Ababa: Forum for Social Studies.
Putnam, R. D. (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6, 65–78.
Putzel, J. (1997). Accounting for the ‘dark side’ of social capital: Reading Robert Puttnam on democracy. Journal of International Development, 9, 939–949.
Rutter, M. (1990). Psychosocial resilience and protective mechanisms. In J. Rolf, A. Masten, & D. Cicchetti (Eds.), Risk and protective factors in the development of psychopathology (pp. 181–214). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Rutter, M., Yule, B., Quinton, D., Rowlands, O., Yule, W., & Berger, M. (1975). Attainment and adjustment in two geographical areas: Some factors accounting for area differences. British Journal of Psychiatry, 126, 520–533.
Scheper-Hughes, N. (1993). Death without weeping: The violence of everyday life in Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Scheper-Hughes, N. (2008). A talent for life: Reflections on human vulnerability and resilience. Ethnos, 731, 25–56.
Serpell, R., & Jere-Folotiya, J. (2008). Developmental assessment, cultural context, gender, and schooling in Zambia. International Journal of Psychology, 43, 88–96.
Small, M. L., Harding, D. J., & Lamont, M. (2010). Reconsidering culture and poverty. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 629, 6–27.
Tekola, B. (2009). Looking beyond poverty: Poor children’s perspectives and experiences of well-being and resilience in Addis Ababa. Unpublished PhD thesis, Bath, University of Bath.
Ungar, M. (2004). A constructionist discourse on resilience: Multiple contexts, multiple realities among at-risk children and youth. Youth and Society, 353, 341–365.
Werner, E. E., & Smith, R. S. (1989). Vulnerable but invincible: A longitudinal study of resilient children and youth. New York: Adams-Banister-Cox.
White, S. C. (2010). Analysing wellbeing: A framework for development practice. Development in Practice, 20(2), 158–172.
Willig, C. (2001). Introducing qualitative research in psychology. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Woolcock, M., & Narayan, D. (2000). Social capital: Implications for development theory, research, and policy. World Bank Research Observer, 152, 225–249.
Acknowledgments
The author thanks Young Lives participants and researchers, and Virginia Morrow who commented on an earlier draft. Young Lives is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and based on a collaborative partnership between the University of Oxford, Save the Children UK, The Open University, UK, and a series of prominent national research and policy institutes in the four study countries.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Camfield, L. Resilience and Well-being Among Urban Ethiopian Children: What Role Do Social Resources and Competencies Play?. Soc Indic Res 107, 393–410 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-011-9860-3
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-011-9860-3