Resilience has become a key twenty-first century paradigm in research, practice and policy development concerning individuals’ mental health and wellbeing. Resilience is a process of person-context interaction where individuals navigate and negotiate their psychological, social, cultural and physical resources in order to improve their wellbeing and alter adversity.

The existing literature addressing resilience is extensive; however, most of the studies have been conducted in European countries limiting the generalizability of models to Western cultures. Therefore, there is an emerging need to examine the applicability of resilience models to non-Western countries. Overcoming and challenging adversity conditions might require different practices in non-Western contexts.

The Resilience Framework (RF), developed by Professor Angie Hart and colleagues in Brighton, is a strategic approach that promotes wellbeing by supporting its users to act tactically about where to direct their efforts when building resilience. This research will help to refine the internationally renowned RF in the light of empirical evidence and contextual diversity. This will be accomplished through investigating the generalizable versus context specific aspects of the RF across Western (UK) and non-Western (Malaysia and Turkey) cultures using a Q-methodology. Q-methodology will help to evidence the RF as a set of interventions and will produce a holistic picture of individuals’ resilience.

Project timeframe

This research project commenced in May 2015 and ended in February 2017.

Project aims

The aims of this research project were to:

  • investigate whether the Resilience Framework (RF) operates similarly or differently across diverse contexts determined by state/national boundaries
  • adapt the RF for non-Western life orientations
  • develop an assessment tool for the RF that can provide both breadth and depth of
  • resilience knowledge; that is available in multiple languages (English, Malaysian and Turkish).