Educational Outcomes: Adversity and Resilience

In the context of risk and resilience, the paper attempts to integrate three strands of research: genetic and mental-health factors, the findings of cohort studies and those of other investigations of educational outcomes. A very wide range of factors, many of them related to disadvantage, bear on such outcomes, but none deterministically. Intelligence, conduct and emotional disorders are all found to influence academic achievement to varying degrees, as do a number of aspects of family, school and the wider social environment. Aspects that contribute to resilience are identified, and the paper concludes with a discussion of interventions to enhance resilience.