Browsing by Author "Liebenberg, Linda"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Adapting visual methodologies to identify youth protective processes in negotiating resilience across cultures and contexts
    (Australian Psychological Society, 2011-08) Cameron, Catherine Ann; Theron, Linda; Ungar, Michael; Liebenberg, Linda
    This paper reports on methodological innovations in an ecological investigation of protective processes in the experiences of youths in transition in eight locations around the globe. Several visual methods were enlisted in working with thriving early adolescents in challenging transitional or relocational situations. Resilience is viewed here as processes that are contextually and culturally specific functional adaptations to environmental challenges. Such adaptations were determined by local Community Advisors (CAs) to signal that a youth was ‘growing up well’ (Ungar, 2008). The methodologies adapted to this study of youth involved videotaping one full day in the life of each participant (Gillen, Cameron, Tapanya, Pinto, Hancock, Young, & Accorti Gamannossi, 2006), a photo elicitation procedure (Liebenberg, 2009), and semistructured interviews with the youths to engage their reflective responses to our interpretations of their daily experiences. The international, interdisciplinary research team co-constructed their understanding of protective factors in the youths’ days through viewing and reviewing the visual materials in concert with the participants’ perceptions of them and in consultation with local CAs. The lessons learned from adapting these visual methods to gain appreciation of protective processes in youths’ lives are offered.
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    Assessing resilience across cultures using mixed methods : construction of the child and youth resilience measure
    (SAGE, 2011) Ungar, Michael; Liebenberg, Linda
    An international team of investigators in 11 countries have worked collaboratively to develop a culturally and contextually relevant measure of youth resilience, the Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM-28). The team used a mixed methods design that facilitated understanding of both common and unique aspects of resilience across cultures. Quantitative and qualitative stages to its development ensure the CYRM-28 has good content-related validity across research sites. Crossover comparison analyses of the findings from the quantitative administration of the pilot measure with 1,451 youth and qualitative interviews with 89 youth support the CYRM-28 as a culturally sensitive measure of youth resilience. The implications of this mixed methods approach to the development of measures for cross-cultural research are discussed.
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    Day in the lives of four resilient youths : cultural roots of resilience
    (SAGE, 2011) Theron, Linda; Cameron, Catherine Ann; Didkowsky, Nora; Lau, Cindy; Liebenberg, Linda; Ungar, Michael
    Grounded in the examples of four impoverished, relocated youths (two Sesotho-speaking orphans in South Africa and two Mexican immigrants in Canada), we explore cultural factors as potential roots of resilience. We triangulate rich qualitative findings (visual, dialogical, and observational) to foreground the particular, as well as acknowledge the universal, in explicating resilience in transitional contexts. Resilience-promoting cultural practices rely on adults to function as custodians of protective practices and values and on youth actively to accept their roles as cultural cocustodians. Our findings urge service providers toward forefronting the specific cultural context of young people in their therapeutic interventions and toward purposefully championing resilience-promoting cultural values and practices.
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    Ethical concerns regarding participation of marginalized youth in research
    (International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development (ISSBD), 2011) Liebenberg, Linda; Ungar, Michael
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    Using visual methods to capture embedded processes of resilience for youth across cultures and contexts
    (PubMed, 2012-02) Didkowsky, Nora; Ungar, Michael; Liebenberg, Linda
    Objectives: We review the value of using visual data in a dialogue with youth, to reflect, explore and find language to better understand processes of resilience. Methods: The argument is demonstrated with examples from the Negotiating Resilience Project (NRP): an international study of 16 youth which uses video recording a day in the life of youth participants, photographs produced by youth, and reflective interviews with the youth about their visual data. Results: Three examples from the NRP are used to show the ways that visual methods can capture and elucidate previously hidden aspects of youth’s positive psychosocial development in stressful social ecologies. Conclusion: Incorporating images as research data can aid in understanding previously unarticulated constructions of youth resilience. When the researcher is reflexive about power dynamics and their role in co-constructing the research environment, visual methods have the potential to reduce power imbalances in the field, meaningfully engage youth in the research process, and help to overcome language barriers.
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    Visual perspectives on majority-world adolescent thriving
    (Society for Research on Adolescence, 2013) Cameron, Catherine Ann; Tapanya, Sombat; Lau, Cindy; Theron, Linda; Chun Li; Liebenberg, Linda; Ungar, Michael
    This paper offers socio-ecological, situated perspectives on adolescent resilience derived from an application of interpretive visual methodologies to deepen understanding of adaptive youth development in diverse majority-world cultural contexts (South Africa, Thailand, China, Mexican migration to Canada). The research is not “cross-cultural”; by contrast, it situates youth engagement contextually, using local perspectives, especially perspectives of adolescents themselves, on “growing up well” under adverse circumstances, to interrogate conceptions of resilience in cultural context. Participants are viewed as members of cultural communities: observations with a small number of individuals are not generalized to national groups. Rather, knowledge gained by these methods is employed to enrich knowledge of the processes of majority-world youth thriving despite such adversities as poverty and social displacement.