From adversity to success : four life experiences around resilience

Abstract

Despite high rates of educational exclusion of adolescents and young adults with disabilities reported by Colombia’s Ministry of Health and Social Protection, 3.7 % of disabled people have reached some level of education. The process of adaptation to the school environment led them to the successful completion of this phase of their training. They confronted adverse conditions and registered some important achievements, notwithstanding adversity. This invites us to think of ‘resilience’ in this population group as a process that ‘arises from’ adversity and not ‘in spite of’ it. Resilience is a transactional process between individuals and their context, a process with strong roots in the individual’s history. This qualitative study emerged in order to understand what happens with disabled young people in Bogotá, Colombia. It was developed using oral life history as a method. Prominence is given to the subjectivity of the collaborator, the social and cultural context and its vision of process, rather than the result. This study seeks to identify and describe the process of adaptation and resilience in schools, as lived by a group of four people with disabilities during their adolescence and young adulthood. The results are presented as suggestive material to design strategies to support students at secondary level. The participants’ own voices, perceptions and expressions were the focus of the study.