Resilience in Education ― Concepts, Contexts and Connections

This volume focuses on resilience in educational contexts which has emerged as an important field of research, with recent investigation into resilience of school students teachers, and post-secondary students and staff. The book integrates theoretically diverse viewpoints and research advancing relevant theory. It furthermore presents interventions which aim enhancing resilience in the educational context. The interplay between more basic research and actual practice in the classroom, university or workplace enriches relevant theory and research. Each chapter includes an explanation of how resilience is conceptualized in the research and the methods used to examine resilience. The chapters also provide a description of the context in which the research was conducted and how particular aspects of context influence the resilience process. Innovative approaches to exploring resilience are highlighted as well as directions for future research.

Dr. Marold Wosnitza is Professor of Education at RWTH Aachen University and Adjunct Professor at Murdoch University in Perth. His research interests include teacher motivation and emotions and resilience. He is head of several national and international research projects including a Lifelong Learning Programme funded project: ENTREE (Enhancing Teacher Resilience in Europe). Marold Wosnitza published numerous journal articles, books and book chapters and presented his research at national and international conferences. He is currently faculty dean research and is heading three different research groups.

Francisco Peixoto is Vice-Rector and Professor at ISPA – Instituto Universitario, the oldest Psychology school in Portugal. His current research interests include identity construction in general, and particularly in teachers, as well as teacher’s resilience. He was member and leader of project teams funded by the Portuguese National Science and Technology Foundation and is a project team member of the funded project by the European Union Lifelong Learning Program project called ENTREE (ENhancing Teacher REsilience in Europe). He published several papers in national and international journals, book chapters and presented his research at national and international conferences.

Susan Beltman is Associate Professor in the School of Education at Curtin University in Western Australia. Her current research interests involve using qualitative methods (including drawings) to examine mentoring, as well as teacher resilience and identity. She was a team member for an ALTC funded project Keeping Cool: Embedding Resiliency in the Initial Teacher Education Curriculum, and is a project team member for two other resilience projects: a European Union Lifelong Learning Program project called ENTREE (ENhancing Teacher REsilience in Europe), and an OLT project BRiTE (Building Resilience in Teacher Education). Susan is President of WAIER (Western Australian Institute for Educational Research).

Dr Caroline Mansfield is an Associate Professor in Education and Associate Dean of Research in the School of Education, Murdoch University, Western Australia. Her research focuses on teachers and students, with an emphasis on motivation, wellbeing, and resilience. Caroline has led two large projects about teacher resilience - Keeping Cool: Embedding resilience in initial teacher education curriculum, and BRiTE: Building Resilience in Teacher Education. In 2016 she was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship (Staying BRiTE: Promoting resilience in higher education) to lead a team of colleagues across Australia to embed resilience in teacher education programs and build a national and international network of interested researchers and practitioners.