Resilience among children in war: The role of multilevel social factors.

Abstract

While a remarkable amount of empirical research of resilience and protective factors has been conducted, the recent reviews have identified certain gaps that still exists. This study contributes to the resilience literature in studying the occurrence and determinants of resilience at ongoing war conditions in a sample of 482 Palestinian school children. Results showed that 33% of children were categorized into the resilient group and 20% into the spared group. However, 20% belonged to the vulnerable group and 27% to the traumatized group. The quality of friendships was associated especially with boys’ resilience. The boys in the resilient group had significantly better friendships than boys in the vulnerable and traumatized groups. This shows that even in most difficult circumstances (high trauma), boys can benefit from high-quality friendships and develop resilience, partly because of the important peer relations.