Academic risk and resilience for children and young people in Asia

Haibin Li, Andrew J.Martin & Wei-Jun Jean Yeung

This research talking about the factors in preventing the effects of risk and stress to lead
the students get academic successfulness. They are consisted of personal factors,
environmental factors, or an interaction between personal and environmental factors. These
factors come out as the influenced of the rapid and dramatic change in Asia. The changes
involve economic and social development. This transition impacts to the economic level or
social class among society, from poverty into the middle class, poor being rich. It greatly affects
the well-being of individuals and families, but the development of Asian countries still shows
the gap in educational outcomes between Asian and Western countries. So, it is interesting to
discover what make Asian students be success in academic despite the challenges and
difficulties they may face. In other word, it is resilience.
In study of academic resilience in Asia, many have suggested that cultural differences are
fundamental reason for achievement gap between Asian and Westerns students. Asian children
(China) experienced a dramatic economic, social and educational development then so it used
as a benchmarks in academic resilience (buoyancy and adapting). Asian is identical with
scholarship, valuing of education, industriousness, discipline and parents’ own value for
education. It considered responsible for fueling Asia’s academic ascension. Asian children are
encouraged to be independent to face academic failure and have a stronger emphasis on effort
than on ability compared to peers in the western context. Asian students and Chinese students
tend to regard their schoolwork as a duty towards their parents and therefore often feel
anxious about their exams or assignments, or have a sense of parent-related guilt in the event
of failure.
To build and empowering academic resilience it needs not only the individual resilience
but also the interactions between individual ecologies. It has been found that partnerships
among the school and family may increase students’ chances of success by alleviating potential
family stressors that can adversely impact academic and personal success. It also found that a
supportive school environment is especially significant to students experiencing family-related
adversities. For example, when Chinese adolescents are in difficult or problematic family
environments (e.g. poor parental supervision and family conflict), pro-social involvement in
school and positive school expectations can be activated to prevent or mitigate poor academic
achievement.
In short, academic resilience of Asian students mostly shaped culturally because of the
risk which they face every day. The risk makes them be engaged and sustain to get good
achievement.

Muhajirah Idman
Student Reg. Number 171052501029