The Connection Between Resilience and Academic Success in High School and Higher Education

The aim of this publication is to investigate the connection between resilience and academic success in high schools and higher education institutions. The resilience concept is used as a seven-part framework developed by the author from the literature, which can be applied to describe how individuals overcome risks and adversities despite the odds being stacked against them. Research on academic resilience has not provided a comprehensive overview on resilience processes at advanced education levels as yet, a shortcoming this thesis addresses. The author asks: How does the resilience concept impact empirical research on the academic success of students in high schools and higher education institutions? As is frequently shown in the literature, the number of at-risk students in high schools and higher education institutions is on the rise and a large number of studies confirm that social background still has a considerable impact on successful navigation through the education system in many countries. Answering the above-stated research question is thus asserted to be of high relevance to theory and practice for assisting students in need. To do so, this publication used the Database of the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) and employed a systematic review design with two major stages: first, at the mapping stage, the author collected, described, and categorized relevant publications of the years 2004 to 2015 to discuss how empirical research studies examine the connection between resilience and academic success in high school and higher education. Second, a framework synthesis of a subset of these studies was conducted to investigate how explorative, qualitative research on resilience and academic success addresses the seven elements of the resilience concept. The core results stem from the framework synthesis and can be summarized describing a typical student in the examined empirical studies: A typical student is part of a minority – he or she is academically resilient because of his or her high motivation, firm family support, and well-functioning cultural adaptation strategies. The student’s educational pathway is researched using a process perspective on resilience and a cross-sectional methodological approach. Neither the institution types nor specific subjects are found to play an important role in the analysis. The author closes with five areas of recommendations for the support of at-risk students in educational institutions derived from the framework synthesis: (a) fostering social connections, (b) getting to know the students’ backgrounds, (c) learning from students, (d) focusing on transitions and life turning points, (e) teaching resilience at high schools and universities.