Transcending Disadvantage

The line of argument in this book is that there are political, socio-economic, familial and institutional factors and the discourses that construct them which affect learners'' resilience. These however do not determine this to the exclusion of individual agency. The book demonstrates that these factors, discourses and individual learners'' responses to them can be identified through an analysis of learners'' life-histories. Township teachers particularly need to learn to elicit and interpret these life-histories so that they can identify the signs and roots of resilience and of its opposite. This will allow them to respond appropriately in ways that maximize and foster resilience in learners.