Part I:
Status of Research

Protective Processes Within Schools

A school can create a "coherent environment so potent that for at least six hours a day it can override almost everything else in the lives of children."

-Ron Edmonds, 1986-"The Grandaddy of School Effectiveness Research"
Quoted by Benard (1992)

In the 1970s, Rutter and his colleagues investigated manifestations of competence in children attending two different schools in high-risk neighborhoods. They controlled for similarities in the children's backgrounds and in types of primary schools they attended, but they still found that the schools had markedly different rates of delinquency, problematic behaviors,attendance, and academic achievement. The better-functioning school employed effective classroom management techniques such as high structure, preparation, and planning,emphasized homework and exams, and insisted that pupils assume responsibility for their actions, their activities, and the maintenance of a prosocial atmosphere (Rutter kket al., 1979). Regarding this school, Garmezy (1987) commented, "the ethos of the school and of its teachers and administrators seemed to nurture a major protective factor in the developing child and adolescent: the acquisition of cognitive and social competences that form the basis for survivorship in a stressful world" (p. 166).

The importance of a positive school experience is also evident in Rutter and Quinton's long-term follow-up of women institutionalized in childhood (Rutter & Quinton, 1984). Moreover, this study provides a good example of the interaction of an individual protective variable (i.e., the capacity to plan) with a positive school experience, and it shows how a good school experience can compensate to some degree for a home environment replete with risk. The girls who showed the capacity to plan were much more likely to have good school experiences, and Rutter later speculated that "the experience of pleasure, success, and accomplishment at school had helped the girls to acquire a sense of their own worth and of their ability to control what happened to them (Rutter, 1987, p. 324).

For administrators and teachers who are interested in fostering resilience in their students, Henderson and Milstein (1996) recommend the following:

• Increase prosocial bonding
• Set clear, consistent boundaries
• Teach life skills
• Provide caring and support
• Set and communicate high expectations
• Provide opportunities for meaningful participation

Pikes, Burrell, and Holiday (1998) advocate resilience-building experiences that focus on five themes set forth by Wang, Haertel, and Walberg (1995):

• Competency--feeling successful
• Belonging--feeling valued
• Usefulness--feeling needed
• Potency--feeling empowered
• Optimism--feeling encouraged and hopeful

They proceed to discuss activities in writing, social studies, reading, mathematics, and science that foster these traits.

Benard (1995) notes that the protective processes in schools fall into the same three categories as do protective processes in the home, namely, caring relationships, high expectations, and opportunities to contribute to others.

Caring Relationships

Benard is very clear about the centrality of caring relationships in the educational process. "Reciprocal caring, respectful, and participatory relationships," she says, "are the critical determining factors in whether a student learns, whether parents become and stay involved in the school, whether a program or strategy is effective, whether an educational change is sustained, and, ultimately, whether a youth feels he or she has a place in this society" (Benard, 1995, p. 2). Other writers provide support for Benard's position. For example, in discussing the importance of relationships outside the family, Werner has repeatedly stated that her resilient children pointed to a favorite teacher who believed in them personally while skillfully teaching academic skills. And Roeser, Eccles, and Sameroff (1998) found that "adolescents who viewed their teachers as providing both academic and emotional support were less likely to experience alienation from school or emotional distress. " They recommend "smaller learning communities within larger schools" to help "students and teachers get to know one another" (p. 346).

The sine qua non of effective student-teacher relationships is for the teacher to reject the four myths described in the introduction to this paper: the Myths of Predetermination, Irreparable Damage, and Identity, and the Myth That, 'Ultimately, It Doesn't Matter'. Once the teacher has done this, he can utilize the strategies for making healthy connections set forth by Deiro (1996): creating one-to-one time with students; using appropriate self-disclosure; having high expectations of students that convey a belief in their capabilities; networking with parents, family members, friends, and neighbors of students; building a sense of community among students within the classroom; and utilizing rituals and traditions within the classroom. Underlying all these strategies, says Deiro, is the communication of dignity and respect through "a considerate tone of voice and receptive manner when speaking to and about students....taking time to listen to students and taking their concerns seriously," and conveying the message that "they trust students are doing the best they can, given their developmental level and life circumstances" (Bernard, 1996, Spring).

No doubt most teachers would like to have this open, receptive, optimistic attitude, but to do so, their own resilience must be fostered. As Deiro says about teachers, "Maintaining their own mental health is critical to bringing out healthier levels of functioning in students" (p.). It is difficult to do this when teachers are asked not only to teach academic subjects but also to right the wrongs of society without adequate resources. However, the way the school is structured can help a great deal. In the words of Benard (Spring, 1998), "school-wide structure that fosters a sense of community and family within the school-that acknowledge nurturing, respectful, inviting relationships which in turn create a sense of belonging-are the keys to student growth and learning (p. 5).

High Expectations and Adequate Support

As the research done by Rutter and others indicates, schools that convey high expectations for their students have higher rates of academic success and lower rates of problematic behaviors, provided they also have a "resilience attitude," that is, they believe in the potential of their students and provide adequate support to enable them to reach that potential. Without this attitude, high expectations alone could be a set-up for failure. The combination of high expectations and support, however, enables students to believe in themselves and their futures, and to develop the critical resilience traits of self-esteem, self-efficacy, autonomy, and optimism" (Benard, 1994). Similarly, in their studies of middle school students, Roester, Eccles, and Sameroff (1998) found "that middle schools can best support adolescents need for competence through positive teacher regard for students and instructional practices that encourage adolescents to view self-improvement, effort, and task mastery as the hallmarks of competence and academic success" (p. 346).

The structure and organization of a school convey the ethos of the school and make clear its expectations. Curricula that are thematic, experiential, challenging, and comprehensive tend to engage students in the learning process, as do those that allow for a broad range of learning styles. Especially important are activities that facilitate students' understanding of multiple perspectives. People are better able to entertain perspectives different from their own if they do not feel threatened. Therefore, building a curriculum around students' strengths, interests, and experience enables them to feel heard and to be more receptive to other ideas. Moreover, groups that are heterogeneous, cooperative, have a sense of shared responsibility, and provide a sense of belonging create ongoing opportunities for self-reflection, critical inquiry, problem solving, and dialogue. Similarly, evaluation systems that support resilience take into account multiple intelligencies, utilize authentic assessments, and foster self-reflection (Benard, 1994). Roeser and his colleagues (1998) found "that a perceived school emphasis on competition, ability relative to others, and differential rewards for high achievers was negatively related to adolescents' academic motivation and emotional well-being over time" (p. 346).

A frequent complaint of teachers is the "lack of motivation" of some students. McCombs and Pope (1995) draw on Roger Mills' theories of metacognition in discussing ways to help people learn to think about their own thought processes and to recognize how thoughts influence one's beliefs, moods, and behaviors. "When individuals can be taught to understand and control their thinking," they say, "they can step outside the influence of negative beliefs about their abilities or fear of failure. As a result they can access higher level processes such as insight, creativity, wisdom, and common sense" (p. ). They also stress that teachers must understand the way their own thought processes work and how their beliefs cause either positive or negative feelings and behaviors towards their students.

Opportunities to Contribute

Just as young people have a need to contribute and feel useful at home, they also need opportunities for meaningful involvement and responsibility within the school. Good practices that facilitate this sense of involvement include "asking questions that encourage critical thinking and dialogue, making learning more hands on, involving students in curriculum planning, using participatory evaluation strategies, letting students create the governing rules of the classroom, and employing cooperative approaches (cooperative learning, peer helping, cross-age mentoring, and community service)" (Benard, 1990).

Benard (1990b) strongly recommends a peer resource model in which "youth-from early childhood on-are provided ongoing continuous opportunities to be resources to each other" p. 1). She calls peer programs (i.e., any program that uses children and youth to work with and/or help other children and youth) the "lodestone to prevention." Having examined aconsiderable body of literature regarding peer resource programs, she maintains that "developing peer programming throughout the life cycle-self-help groups, mutual aid groups, for neighbor 'natural helpers,'intergenerational programs, etc.-should be a major focus of prevention policy and programming" (Benard, 1990b, p.1). She provides the following review regarding cooperative education. The review is reprinted here with her permission:

According to the International Association for Cooperation in Education, over a thousand studies of cooperative learning now exist--most of them documenting positive outcomes across cognitive, moral, emotional, and social development. Researchers have found that, when compared to matched control groups, cooperative learning experiences promote:

• Increases in academic scores
• Increases in empathy
• Increases in social skills
• Increases in acceptance of ethnic, racial, and physical diversity
• Increases in conflict resolution
• Increases in self-esteem and self control
• Increases in positive attitudes toward school
• Increases in critical thinking (Johnson & Johnson, 1989; Slavin, 1990)

According to Slavin (1990), "What is remarkable (given the wide variety of cooperative learning strategies) is that each of several quite different methods has been shown to have positive effects on a wide variety of outcomes....In general, for any desired outcome of schooling, administer a cooperative learning treatment. About two-thirds of the time, there will be a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in favor of the experimental group--rarely, if ever, will differences favor a control group."

Researchers are in agreement that cooperative learning is so successful because it promotes ongoing participatory opportunities for youth, reflects a basic belief in youth's capacities to contribute, and allows for learning in a social context ....in the context of interpersonal relationships (Johnson & Johnson, 1989; Slavin, 1990).

According to Johnson and Johnson (1996), "If students are to learn how to regulate their behavior, they must have opportunities to make decisions regarding how to behave and follow through on those decisions. Allowing students to be joint architects in matters affecting them promotes feelings of control and autonomy. Teachers and administrators can [therefore] concentrate on instruction rather than control."

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