Issues Brief - Resilience in Schools

Resilience in school students is part of a growing discussion in the education sector. Research shows that student resilience is linked to positive schooling outcomes and engagement, yet recent surveys show that three in ten Australian students report a low degree of resilience. Much is being done to discover how to boost student resilience, and substantive efforts are made to create direct and indirect methods to improve student resilience. 

Catholic education has historically emphasised the formation of the whole person - mind, body, and spirit. In the Catholic school tradition, character development and spiritual growth are integral to education, not add-ons. In this context, resilience is linked to the cultivation of virtue, and imparted through “contemporary educational psychology … integrated with a sound Catholic anthropology”, as described by psychologist and theologian Sr Elena Marie Piteo OP. 

This Issues Brief explores these growing issues of student resilience, what student resilience can do to improve productivity and engagement, direct and indirect methods of boosting resilience, and notes the lasting effects indirect methods such as a Catholic Education, do to form resilient students.