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Teacher resilience: Theorising resilience and poverty

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Teacher resilience: theorizing

resilience and poverty
a
Liesel Ebersöhn
a
Unit for Education Research in AIDS, University of Pretoria,
Pretoria, South Africa
Published online: 09 Sep 2014.

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 Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 2014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2014.937960

Teacher resilience: theorizing resilience and poverty

Liesel Ebersöhn*

Unit for Education Research in AIDS, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
(Received 9 December 2013; accepted 6 June 2014)

In this article, I hope to provide some novel insights into teacher resilience and
poverty on the basis of ten-year long-term ethnographic participatory reflection
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and action data obtained from teachers (n = 87) in rural (n = 6) and urban (n = 8)
schools (n = 14, high schools = 4, primary schools = 10) in three South African
provinces. In resilience debates, resilience in poverty-saturated schools is gener-
ally indicated as both process and outcome. Evidence from this study posits resil-
ience processes in poverty as a lifeline chain, linking uninterrupted incidences of
adaptation one after the other. Thus, rather than once-off incidental processes
depicting a clear adversity beginning and positive adaptation end, adapting to
poverty calls for resilience qualities characterized as a cable of nonstop vigilance.
To mediate risk during resilience processes, the teachers in the study made use of
traits such as compassion, creativity, optimism and especially flocking to access
and use scarce protective resources. In the lifeline chain of resilience, the teachers
demonstrated mostly positive outcomes as well as instances of maladaptation and
thriving. Teacher resilience in poverty contexts means that teachers ceaselessly
adapt in a sequence of linked incidents to a procession of risks. They use
particular traits to unite and direct their adaptive series of behaviors in order to
transform high-risk schools into supportive spaces where they sometimes thrive,
and sometimes feel distressed but mostly function effectively as teachers.
Keywords: teacher resilience; poverty; high-risk schools; supportive schools;
teacher traits; adaptive coping processes

1. Introduction
South Africa is currently the most unequal society in the world (OXFAM, 2013;
The World Bank, 2012). Gu and Day (2013) state that workplace conditions sup-
portive of sustained teacher presence are crucial in understanding teacher resilience.
The working conditions of teachers in a socio-politically transforming and emerging
economy context, such as that in South Africa, could often be considered intolerable
due to poverty and poor service delivery. It is therefore not surprising that roughly a
third of South African teachers are lost to the education sector annually due to attri-
tion (South African Council for Educators, 2011). However, attrition statistics also
indicate that two-thirds of the South African teaching corps remain in teaching. It is
not necessarily the case that teachers who stay on in their careers reflect resilient
traits. At one extreme, perseverance may indicate apathy to change, or be a conse-
quence of limited alternative career or life options, or at another extreme it could
indicate teacher resilience. In an attempt to understand teacher resilience, this article

*Email: Liesel.Ebersohn@up.ac.za

© 2014 Taylor & Francis

 2 L. Ebersöhn

like a number of others (Gu & Day, 2007; Johnson et al., 2010; Mansfield, Beltman,
Price, & McConney, 2012) focuses on resilience debates as a way of investigating
the circumstances that make teachers stay on as teachers rather than on attrition and
why teachers leave the profession. The overarching question driving this article is:
How do South African teachers, challenged by poverty-related adversity, craft their
lives to manage persistent adversity, and remain in the profession to provide teach-
ing? Whether or not this sustained teaching is quality teaching falls outside of the
scope of this article and merits additional inquiry.
This article draws on analyses of ten-year long-term ethnographic participatory
reflection and action (PRA) data obtained from teachers (n = 87) in rural (n = 6) and
urban (n = 8) schools (n = 14, high schools = 4, primary schools = 10) in three South
African provinces. The long-term data provide insights into resilience in poverty-
saturated school settings as a process and not only as an outcome. The argument
posited adds to the existing knowledge of resilience as a process by showing that
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chronic poverty adversity requires a sequence of mini-processes of adaptation that

are progressively linked to form a lifeline chain of resilience. A driver for teacher
resilience in the study was optimism that high-risk schools could become welcoming
spaces for students to learn. Other teacher traits that buoyed adaptive processes
included flocking together to share available resources in innovative yet pragmatic
ways; collaborating with a range of partners to provide services so that teachers
could be freed to teach; and persevering and inspiring resilience by modelling adap-
tive coping processes to others. Teacher resilience outcomes were characterized by
mostly positive adaptation outcomes, together with some instances of maladaptation
and moments of thriving. The article posits teacher resilience in poverty contexts as
teachers ceaselessly adapting in a sequence of linked incidents to respond to a pro-
cession of risks. Teachers use particular traits to unite and direct their adaptive series
of behaviors in order to transform high-risk schools into supportive spaces where
teachers sometimes thrive, sometimes feel distressed and mostly function effectively
as teachers.

2. Contextual challenges requiring teacher resilience in South Africa

The daily lives of South African teachers are encumbered with many of the ailments
of an emerging economy in transition. Foremost among these is poverty. The five-
yearly Income and Expenditure Survey (Statistics South Africa, 2013) revealed a
South African poverty rate of 56.8% in 2009. In education, the prevalence of poverty
can be seen in the fact that over 65% of South African students indicated that they
received meals at school through the government-driven school nutrition programme
(Statistics South Africa, 2013). Also, in South Africa, 4.6 million people are currently
unemployed, constituting an unemployment rate of 25.2%. Discouraged work seekers
number 2.3 million, and other people, not economically active, stands at 33,000
(Statistics South Africa, 2013). The implication is that most teachers can expect the
students in their classrooms to come from households with income problems.
Social stressors related to economic hardship include high instances of violent
crime (Statistics South Africa, 2012). Societal violence is evident from the fact that
approximately 23% of South African students indicated that they had experienced
some form of violence at school; and 92% of the 2.6 million students (who reported
that they had experienced violence at school) also reported that they had received
corporal punishment from a teacher (Statistics South Africa, 2012).
 Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice 3

Besides violence, health problems also form part of the school landscape of
South African teachers. The estimated overall HIV prevalence rate in South Africa
is approximately 10% with an estimated 5.26 million people living with HIV in
2013. An estimated 15.9% of the adult population aged 15–49 years is HIV positive
(Statistics South Africa, 2013). The prevalence of poor health, with accompanying
high rates of illness and mortality of caregivers, loved ones, children, and peers, is
evidenced by the fact that 7% of students attending schools are orphans (Statistics
South Africa, 2012). According to the 2010/2011 census, over 51,000 students
attending South African schools reported that they had given birth and nearly
14,000 reported that were pregnant (Statistics South Africa, 2012).
The education infrastructure is also handicapped by sectoral transformation,
which is characteristic of many young democracies. According to the General
Household Survey in South Africa (Statistics South Africa, 2012), problems in
schools were ‘lack of books’ (6%), large classes with too many students (5%), high
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school fees (5%), poorly maintained facilities (4%), lack of teachers (3%), and poor
quality teaching (3%). In 2011, 10% of the students at a particular school reported
that they were repeating the grade they were currently in.
These circumstances can be considered cumulative and chronic stressors in the
everyday world-of-work of South African teachers. The grim statistics on education
suggest that teacher drop-out will be high and teacher resilience low in the future. In
South Africa today, the rate of teacher attrition exceeds the rate at which newly
trained teachers are being delivered. A national survey on teacher attrition and reten-
tion (Shisana, Peltzer, Zungu-Dirwayi, & Louw, 2005) revealed that between 18,000
and 22,000 (5–6%) teachers leave the teaching profession every year. These figures
are supported by data (South African Council for Educators, 2011) showing that in
2006 approximately 17,500 educators were lost through attrition while only 2500
teachers were trained. In the period 2000–2004, South Africa experienced an esti-
mated teacher attrition level of just over a third of all teachers, that is, about 34%
(South African Council for Educators, 2011).
The causes for teacher attrition in South Africa include unfavorable working con-
ditions, unreasonable workloads, unmet needs, and changing systems that strain
teachers’ professional growth and development (McCann & Johannessen, 2004);
failure to experience personal fulfilment (Rangraje, Van der Merwe, Urbani, & Van
der Walt, 2005; Strydom, Nortjé, Beukes, Esterhuyse, & Van der Westhuizen, 2012);
uncompetitive salaries (Black & Hosking,1997; Peltzer, Shisana, Zuma, Van Wyk,
& Zungu-Dirwayi, 2009); and better financial incentives for employment abroad
(Bertram, Appleton, Muthukrishna, & Wedekind, 2006). The latter is supported by
statistics indicating that 8.6% of South African teachers left to work abroad from
2000 to 2004, with an estimated 4% of South African teachers working abroad in
2006 (South African Council for Educators, 2011).
Other factors that contribute to teacher attrition include resource-constrained
schools, lack of community support, limited parental involvement, poor professional
development prospects (Castro, Kelly, & Shih, 2010), and burnout due to a
lack of psychological meaningfulness in teaching as a career (Rothmann &
Hamukang’andu, 2013). Mulkeen and Crowe-Taft (2010) believe the high incidence
of hidden attrition due to absenteeism of teachers in emerging economies is due to
their engaging in informal entrepreneurial activities to supplement their meagre
salaries (Kadzamira, 2006); and teachers’ deteriorated health due to HIV and
Aids-related illness (Theron, Geyer, Strydom, & Delport, 2008).
 4 L. Ebersöhn

Hurst and Rust (1990) argue that teacher attrition in developing countries is high
because teachers have to endure adverse working conditions such as heavy work-
loads due to extreme student–teacher ratios, discipline challenges, taxing extra-mural
responsibilities as well as deteriorating societal status and self-esteem.

3. Current debates on resilience – what is resilience and why does it matter in

a context of poverty?
South African teachers who do not leave the profession are evidently able to adapt
to the adversity of poverty described earlier thus signifying their psychological resil-
ience. Current views on such resilience are that it is a process of risk management
and development in the face of adversity (Strümpfer, 2013). The debate is ongoing
as to whether or not resilience is an outcome – a static resiliency or trait – (Masten,
Cutuli, Herbers, & Reed, 2009; Masten & Reed, 2005) or a process (Garmezy,
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Masten, & Tellegen, 1984) described as dynamic (Masten, 1994), interactive (Rutter,
2012) and transactional-ecological (Ungar, 2012). Although such ‘either-or’ debates
may be continuing, it is clear that both process and outcome coexisted in the teacher
resilience profile of the South African teachers in this study. Figure 1 thus depicts
resilience as an interactive ecological process as well as an outcome or trait. The
process view implies that the human system is in dynamic and active interaction
with risk and protection in a particular ecology. The outcome view (Benders &
Jackson, 2012; Knight, 2007) implies that specific personality traits or learnt skills
can provide a buffer against risk. Conversely, a deficit in traits or skills could serve
as an encumbrance in dealing effectively with risk.
As illustrated in Figure 1, resilience only ever becomes pertinent in the presence
of significant adversity: succeeding despite considerable risk. As stated earlier, this
adversity (risk factor) may originate in the ecology and/or in the teacher himself or
herself. In the quest to adapt to challenges in the environment, the teacher appraises

Beginning Process End

Appraisal [of
‘significance’ (adversity
(Significant) of adversity / experienced as:) Adaptive coping Positive adaptation
Adversity risk factor (-s)] Stressor processes by teachers outcome (-s)

Risk Protective
factors resources

Embedded: ecology and human

Teacher Environmental Teacher Environmental

traits / barriers traits / assets
weakness strengths

Figure 1. A linear view of resilience as process and outcome.

 Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice 5

(Skinner & Zimmer-Gembeck, 2007) whether or not sufficient protective resources

are available to adapt to the risk – evaluating the significance of the adversity. Here
‘significance’ of adversity is criterion-based and determined by the insider. The vet-
eran teacher who has to adapt to curriculum changes experiences the challenge sub-
jectively based on her prior learning, support in her school to interpret new
curriculum statements and the availability of resources to implement new classroom
activities. For teachers in South Africa, poverty is often a significant adversity that
is both chronic (ongoing adversity) and cumulative (multiple stressors that are pres-
ent simultaneously and may change over time).
The relative significance of risk is determined by a specific contextual familiarity,
which includes the physical realm but also social capital, spiritual capital and cul-
tural capital. The availability of such capital or resources in a particular context
feeds into resilience – as will become evident in the discussion on protective
resources below. A teacher will experience the risk factor as a stressor when she per-
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ceives dissonance between the available protective resources and the type of adver-
sity to which she needs to adapt, that is, when she appraises the adversity as
‘significant’ to her. As with the risk factors, protective resources are also embedded
in the specific context (external) as well as the teacher (internal). It follows that
resilience is therefore ecological in nature (Ungar, 2012).
As part of the interaction between the human and ecological systems, the teacher
engages in specific adaptive coping behavior to mediate the effect of the particular
stressor (to cope with the stressor). From this perspective, resilience signifies adap-
tive coping processes (Skinner & Zimmer-Gembeck, 2007). Adaptive coping behav-
ior is the intersection between personality traits, acquired skills, and the clever use
of available protective resources to manage adversity. Adaptive coping behavior thus
implies that a teacher would know which protective resources are available to deal
with risk and would have the savvy to access and use these resources in a sustained
manner. During adaptive coping processes, teachers would, for example, use their
advocacy ability (trait-resilience) to ask a school principal (external protective
resource) for in-service training opportunities in their school district because of cur-
riculum changes (risk factor).
The contextual nature of resilience brings culture strongly to the fore as particu-
lar worldviews will necessarily influence process decisions. Earlier, (Ebersöhn,
2012, 2013) I posited an indigenous knowledge system analytical framework,
namely relationship-resourced resilience (RRR), as an alternative indigenous path-
way to resilience that could be used by South African teachers. In RRR, teachers
make use of collective adaptive strategies, flocking, rather than flight or fight as
adaptive responses to stressors. Flocking is directed at mitigating shared risk by
combining shared resources to achieve collective positive outcomes.
The outcome view also alludes to the adaptive outcome based on the particular
resilience processes. In this way, dynamic processes between human and ecological
systems can lead to the following outcomes (Rutter, 2012, p. 336): relatively good
outcomes despite risk; overcoming stress or adversity; reducing vulnerability to
environmental risk experiences. Some theorists do not view resilience as mere adap-
tation (better-than-expected outcomes) to adversity-related risk factors. Walsh (2007)
expounds on these notions by positing resilience as a way to recalibrate and move
forward. Strümpfer (2013) believes thriving is possible, not merely recovery or posi-
tive coping. In the same way, in her broaden-and-build theory, Fredrickson (2004)
states that well-being outcomes of individuals can increase in the presence of
 6 L. Ebersöhn

positive affect traits. Tugade and Fredrickson’s (2007) view of resilience is that
routine positive emotions can lead to increased protective resources and that abun-
dant positive emotions can be harnessed to assist coping during adversity.

4. Current debates in teacher resilience – what is teacher resilience and why

does it matter in a context of poverty?
Teacher resilience refers to those teachers who withstand the ebbs and flows of the
educational sector (such as those described earlier) and who keep on teaching
despite all the negative factors. Teacher resilience is an important field of study
because teachers who teach well and remain in education impact positively on stu-
dents’ educational outcomes. In other words, one of the factors which impact on
pupils’ performance is being taught by teachers with resilience. Teacher resilience
together with teacher knowledge, skill, and qualities however all form a bricolage of
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learning support to enhance academic performance. It becomes even more important

when one considers that teachers are the single most important resource available to
ensure effective learning, particularly in the case in an emerging economy character-
ized by a severe lack of resources.
Despite different emphases in defining it, teacher resilience appears to be a combi-
nation of personality traits, developmental processes, and learnt skills (Benders &
Jackson, 2012; Bobek, 2002; Gu & Day, 2007; Howard & Johnson, 2004; Johnson
et al., 2010; Mansfield et al., 2012; Meister & Ahrens, 2011; Muller, Gorrow, & Fiala,
2011; Patterson, Collins, & Abbott, 2004; Stanford, 2001; Yonezawa, Jones, &
Singer, 2011). Day and Gu (2014) found that it is the capacity to be resilient which is
important in teacher resilience. Such traits and behaviors may fluctuate according to
various factors. Gu and Day (2007) describe the fluctuation as synergy between the
different dimensions (personal, professional, and situated) of teachers’ lives and tea-
cher resilience – foregrounding intrapersonal capacity to be resilient. Other research-
ers (Johnson et al., 2010) similarly argue that teacher resilience implies fluidity
between work and intrapersonal and interpersonal factors, namely teachers’ identity,
relationships, school culture, work, and policies and practices. In their work with
early career teachers, Mansfield et al. (2012) posit a four-dimensional framework
which also echoes the relational quality of teacher resilience. These teacher resilience
discourses touch on the interactive and process qualities of resilience.
The outcome view of resilience is also evident in research on teacher resilience
where various intrapersonal protective resources of teachers are identified and mea-
sured. Specific traits considered indicators of teacher resilience include flexibility
(Sumsion, 2003), problem-solving (Castro et al., 2010; O’Sullivan, 2006; Patterson
et al., 2004), commitment to students (Brunetti, 2006; Stanford, 2001), effective
teaching skills, time management skills (Bobek, 2002; Gu & Day, 2007; Holloway,
2003; Mansfield et al., 2012), and personal values (Patterson et al., 2004). In line
with Fredrickson’s (2004) view, positive affects also serve as indicators of teacher
resilience, namely perseverance (Stanford, 2001; Sumsion, 2003), sense of humour
(Bobek, 2002), and optimism (Stanford, 2001).
From a career psychology perspective, teacher resilience converges with work
engagement (Rothmann & Hamukang’andu, 2013), burnout (distress), and job satis-
faction (eustress). Day and Gu (2009) have added ‘texture’ to teacher resilience
research by also investigating sense of vocation and career fulfilment (Gu & Day,
2007). Job satisfaction in teaching correlates positively with teachers’ perception that
 Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice 7

their career is a vocation, regardless of whether they teach marginalized pupils or

contribute to social justice (Fritz & Smit, 2008), and an expression of their love for
and commitment to students (Brunetti, 2006). Besides job satisfaction, teacher perse-
verance is ascribed to teachers’ use of protective resources including peer support
(fellow teachers and administrative staff) (Castro et al., 2010) and support from
families and faith-based organizations (Stanford, 2001).

5. Methodology, ethics and limitations

With others I used PRA (Chambers, 2008) in a long-term (from 2003 to the present)
partnership with teachers to investigate resilience in high-risk education settings.
The study followed an interpretivist approach (Patton, 2002) in order to promote
knowledge generation where the participants could share different perspectives. The
long-term nature of the PRA ethnography enabled systematic process observations
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on resilience. This ethnography included schools as purposively sampled cases of

high-risk education settings (n = 14, high schools = 4, primary schools = 10, rural =
6, urban = 8) in three South African provinces. Criteria for ‘high-risk education set-
ting’ included school community and household indicators of socioeconomic level
(indicated by household income) and the prevalence of HIV-infected and affected
households (indicated by disclosed HIV-positive status in households). The school
principals guided the purposive selection (Babbie & Mouton, 2001) of teachers
(n = 87) who showed commitment to promoting access to and high performance in
high risk schools. Table 1 provides an overview of the ethnographic sample of
schools as cases and teachers as participants.
The ten-year PRA ethnography data sources included observation-in-the-context-
of-interaction data (Angrosino & Mays de Pérez, 2000) documented in research dia-
ries, field notes, photographs, and audiovisual recordings (Walsh, 2007). Informal
conversational interviews, unstructured face-to-face interviews and focus group inter-
views were audio-recorded and transcribed. PRA-directed activities and focus groups
were used to facilitate spontaneous collective discussions of teacher experiences
(Anderson, 2002; Mayan, 2001). Constructivist grounded theory principles (Charmaz,
2000) were used for secondary thematic analysis of the existing data sources.
In the study, human experiences as lived and viewed by the participating teach-
ers were investigated in order to present credible results (Lincoln & Guba, 2002). In
addition, the analysis included a search for negative cases and consideration of alter-
native explanations for the findings (Mason, 2002; Seale, 1999; Silverman, 2000).
Member checking was used to enhance credibility (Seale, 1999). Prolonged engage-
ment in the research field supported continued fieldwork for data saturation and pre-
vented hasty conclusions (Patton, 2002). Research journals were consulted to gain
access to other experiences, perceptions, and assumptions and enabled acknowledge-
ment of and reflection on researcher bias. An audit trail (Janesick, 2000) strength-
ened the dependability and confirmability of the findings.
All the participating teachers gave their informed consent to participate in the
ongoing study. As is often the case in PRA studies (Chambers, 2008), the teachers
requested not to be anonymous in the textual and visual data – they wanted to be
acknowledged as co-generators of new knowledge. The principals and school district
officials also gave their informed consent for the conducting of the study on school
grounds. The ethics protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Faculty
of Education, University of Pretoria.
 Downloaded by [University of Pretoria] at 00:33 01 October 2014

8
L. Ebersöhn

Table 1. Long-term ethnographic sample of schools as cases and teachers as participants.

Timeframe of participation in PRA- Primary High Principal as partici-
partnership School SA province school school Teachers pant Rural Urban
2005-ongoing A Mpumalanga 0 1 19 1 1 0
2010–2013 B Mpumalanga 1 0 3 0 1 0
2010-ongoing C Mpumalanga 1 0 3 1 1 0
2013– D Mpumalanga 0 1 3 1 1 0
2013– E Mpumalanga 1 0 3 1 1 0
2013– F Mpumalanga 1 0 3 1 1 0
2003–2007 G Gauteng 1 0 8 0 0 1
2010–2012 H Gauteng 1 0 12 0 0 1
2010–2012 I Gauteng 1 0 1 0 0 1
2003–2013 J Eastern Cape 1 0 10 0 0 1
2008–2013 K Eastern Cape 1 0 2 0 0 1
2008–2013 L Eastern Cape 1 0 10 1 0 1
2010–2012 M Eastern Cape 0 1 5 0 0 1
2010–2012 N Eastern Cape 0 1 5 0 0 1
Total 14 3 10 4 87 6 6 8
 Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice 9

As the sample of schools and teachers was limited, transferability (Seale, 1999)
of the findings is restricted to teachers in similar school settings, namely high-risk
schools where poverty is chronic and where the school system is in a process of
transformation.

6. Results
6.1. Risk and poverty
In the South African education landscape, teachers can expect to deal with multiple
stressors that are either simultaneous or follow one another in quick succession – as
if in a never-ending stream of adversity. The particular adversity requiring constant
adaptation by the teachers in this study was both cumulative and chronic. The
enmeshed nature of the chronic and cumulative risk, characteristic of poverty, was
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especially evident in the visual data.

Irrespective of urban or rural settings, an unequal and transitioning society such
as that in South African society implies inadequate and unreliable service delivery.
The upshot is that transport to schools is likely to be difficult for teachers as well as
students. In the absence of school buses, the long distances in the rural areas are a
particular problem for rural students (Photograph 1) who have to walk to and from
school. Urban and rural schools have electricity, but frequent power shortages call
for innovation and flexibility on the part of teachers. With the advent of mobile tech-
nology, most teachers and students have cellular phones (Photograph 2), which are
used mainly for personal communication rather than as teaching aids. The water
supply to schools is also often problematic, and many urban and rural schools con-
sequently use tanks to harvest rain water as a more dependable source of water
(Photograph 3). In all the schools in the study, the teachers and students carried
buckets of water to bathrooms and kitchens. The shortage of water also had negative
sanitation implications – in the rural schools, in particular, the girls regarded the iso-
lated, old-fashioned toilets as a health and safety risk (Photograph 4).
The existence of vegetable gardens in all the schools (Photographs 5–8) testified
to the students and their families’ basic need for food in a poverty context. For many
of the students, school was the only protective resource in the fight against hunger.
The students in the study came to school primarily to eat and then to learn: ‘When
they pack their bags you’ll find a dish and a spoon, no school books’ (School N).
Produce from the vegetable gardens supplemented the state nutrition programmes
aimed at providing all students from low socioeconomic neighbourhoods with at
least one meal a day (Photograph 9). The schools in the study came to a halt for at
least one hour every day to enable the students and teachers to eat.
The extent of poverty-related hardship was also evident in the case of the school
caretaker in School L who stayed in a house on the school grounds (Photograph 10)
and cared for three orphaned pupils following the HIV&AIDS-related deaths of their
parents. The queue of community members who came for daily meals at School J
(Photograph 11) was another reminder that poverty extends beyond the school
boundaries and into the personal lives of the teachers and the students they teach.
Although the infrastructure of the schools in the study was run down
(Photograph 12), the teachers used what was available in imaginative and functional
ways to promote learning and development (Photographs 13 and 14). Teaching and
learning took place every day of the school week. Involvement and interest in the
 10 L. Ebersöhn
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Photograph 1. Walking to school (School F, 09-2013).

schools could be seen in the maintenance of the buildings over time with the installation
of new doors and security gates following acts of vandalism (Photograph 15), new class-
room space created for foundation phase students in unused buildings (Photograph 16),
and the expansion of the sparse school libraries with donations of books (Photograph 17).

6.2. Resilience is both outcome and process

In the study, teacher resilience in an ecology of poverty had process as well as out-
come elements. The previous section revealed that every risk documented was met
with pragmatic innovation by the teachers to mediate the effect of the risk. The
teachers in the study clearly possessed traits that they used in dynamic processes to
buffer risk in their resource-constrained contexts. The teachers used their traits (com-
passion, creativity, optimism, and relational worldview) to identify available protec-
tive resources, to identify acquaintances who could grant access to resources and to
stand together to mobilize the sustained use of resources to counter risk. The
 Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice 11
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Photograph 2. Mobile phone tower (School A, 05-2011).

teachers used this combination of traits in processes to change schools from places
of adversity to places of care and support thereby promoting teacher resilience:
It is no longer the teacher and the student. The parents are coming in and out … in this
school it is not for the teachers, it is also for the community so they can come here and
roundabout. (School K)
The visual data shown above (Photographs 1–17) illustrate how, in the midst of
adversity, the teachers used their abilities and available protective resources to create
safe and secure school climates where the students could learn (and the teachers
could teach). Even before the teachers in the study taught, they buoyed school-based
resilience by attending to the students’ nutrition needs and hunger. The compassion
and pragmatism of one teacher (School J) is reflected in the following words.
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Photograph 3. Harvesting rainwater (School A, 10-2010).

But now they come and we see that child has a learning problem, but even if that child
hasn’t got a learning problem – because he doesn’t say anything, he can’t do anything
on an empty stomach. Now we find it is easier for them to answer questions in class,
to be involved, actively involved in a group, to play during break because he’s got
something in his stomach.
Besides the compassion and pragmatism evident in the above extract, teacher resil-
ience was also buoyed by personality traits of optimism and networking. By collec-
tively mobilizing the joint protective resources available in the school community,
the teachers could have more time to teach – rather than being required to tend
school gardens, for example. A school principal (School L) reported: ‘Fortunately
we got this guy here who is working in the area … that grounds man, he likes the
garden very much. So fortunately for them they don’t close when we close, so there
is no going to see that pressure now when we are on holiday.’ In another school
(School L), networking traits and processes also reflected teacher resilience:
 Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice 13
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Photograph 4. Old-fashioned toilets (School A, 04-2009).

Photograph 5. Vegetable garden (School J, 05-2011).

The volunteer together with the caregiver is very helpful because they are staying in
the area. They know the area very well, so it is easy for them. So it helps us because
there are many orphan kids, it’s a large area. We can’t do it … we can’t afford to go.
We must teach.
Another example of trait process combinations in teacher resilience was when the
teachers decided to tackle the stigma of HIV&AIDS-related silences caused by fear
of discrimination. By actively shaping their schools as spaces where people infected
by HIV or living with AIDS could receive meals, could be referred to clinics and
could receive support to apply for social grants, the teachers were in effect
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Photograph 6. Vegetable garden (School E, 10-2010).

Photograph 7. Infrastructure for a vegetable garden (School K, 01-2011).

advocating disclosure (an unheard-of step in all the South African neighborhoods
where we studied resilience). Disclosure also meant that coordinated processes could
be activated to promote resilience as teachers could then get to know circumstances
of students’ lives:
The parents came in flocking and started to disclose. Then we noticed that it is mostly
grandparents because they are staying with their grandparents and now they disclose to
us. (School K)
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Photograph 8. Parent in vegetable garden (School L, 05-2011).

That is when we started to know that so-and-so is infected or that so-and-so is affected
because he or she lost a parent. Then we give them steps to Mrs. X., she has got all
the number of the students who are affected or infected. (School J)
Rather than anger, anxiety, and frustration due to student absenteeism, networking-
promoted teacher resilience by raising awareness and compassion for the affected
students:
Ever since we got a caregiver and those volunteers … we find that there were students
who were late. But they stopped coming late doing follow-ups. And now we know
there is a problem at home. It’s not the child who wants to come late. (School L)

6.3. Resilience in a poverty setting is a lifeline chain of positive adaptation,

maladaptation and thriving
An addition to the process view of resilience is that resilience in poverty mirrors a
chain of successive adaptive coping strategies as numerous poverty risks follow each
other in a string of challenges requiring chronic adaptation. Figure 2 shows this
ongoing, rather than occasional (see Figure 1), adaptive process characteristic of
teacher resilience in a milieu of chronic stressors. The chain indicates the messy to-
and-fro sequence of daily adaptation to poverty-related stressors. The chain in
Figure 2 consists of mini-adaptive processes (one of which is depicted in Figure 1).
Figure 1 shows that sporadic risk factors require intermittent attention, while Figure 2
shows that the chronic procession of risk factors needs to be paralleled by an equally
chronic chain of adaptation. Whereas the chain appears unending, the linear depic-
tion shows a clear beginning and end to the need to adapt. In poverty contexts, ‘the
light at the end of the tunnel’ may suggest a slight reprieve before a predictable next
stressor.
The ebb and flow of an adaptation chain in the teachers’ lives is revealed in the
following extract: ‘The lack of, uhm, resources. They make us to resist. But our
 16 L. Ebersöhn
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Photograph 9. Preparing school meals (School A, 10-2010).

teachers here at school. Everything, everything: we are overcoming the challenge.

We are doing what we are supposed to do’ (School C). The chain of persistent and
creative trial and error in managing a school vegetable garden is described as fol-
lows (School K):
Sometimes we do not get enough of, what do you call it, the seedlings, at the right
moment. When the school is closed no one look after the garden. When we open, the
garden is dead again. Then we have to start all over again and some have to go out
and look for seedlings. As a result for the first time that we started the garden it was
difficult for us to get the seedlings again. We have to sell the small amount that we
get, the little that we get from the garden in order to get money to buy seedlings.
In the same way that an assortment of risk factors was present as a constant stream,
so the array of adaptation outcomes that the teachers reported was also varied. The
data extracts indicated that the chain of teacher adaptation was directed and fed by
small successes. This positive adaptation to constant stressors culminated in a high
frequency of overall positive adaptation irrespective of instances of maladaptation.
 Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice 17
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Photograph 10. Caretaker house (School L, 01-2011).

Photograph 11. Community members show up for a daily meal (School J, 10-2008).

Together with the earlier data already presented, the following extracts substantiate
the claim of positive adaptation.
It’s not that we are incompetent. It’s only because of those challenges that we have.
Most of those challenges that we had before. But now, everything is fine for us. We do
our best. So even that self-esteem. Even for the teachers, the educators – that self-
esteem is so good. (School B)
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Photograph 12. Damaged classroom in disrepair for more than five years (School A,
09-2013).

Photograph 13. The new Reception Year classroom (School L, 07-2012).

I don’t care what the others are saying. The recognition from the Department, the rec-
ognition from the community. As long, as long I know that what I’m doing makes me
happy. I am happy now. There are some people that are unhappy. Even the community
is very pleased with us. Ja. (School K)
There were also some negative sentiments as the teachers were expected to fulfil
multiple roles: ‘At school they like to call us social workers. We are social workers
 Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice 19
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Photograph 14. Playground (School K, 10-2010).

now. I cannot do that social work’ (School J). Instances of maladaptive outcomes in
teacher resilience processes were also evident in weariness as a result of a discon-
nect between involvement on a teacher level and that on a policy level: ‘And there
is no support at all. But what we are doing is very good. But they don’t know what
is happening in the real world. The real world in the classroom. And they don’t
know the communities where we are working’ (School M). The teachers were also
despondent when they felt unable to support resilience in others: ‘Sometimes you
can’t make someone change. You can’t change people. You can’t force them to
change. You can’t make them think differently. It must be something that comes to
you’ (School D).
The teachers also reported extraordinary moments of thriving. Even though hav-
ing to fulfil multiple roles often caused despair, it sometime also led to elation: ‘We
are social workers. We are AIDS counsellors. We are advisors you know. We are
doing. We are change agents’ (School K). The teachers were exuberant when they
felt they could inspire others and were acknowledged for their turnaround of high-
risk schools into inclusive, supportive places:
To be recognised by other schools. ’Cause before, we were … we and they. Now the
high schools came to us. They were on our mind. But before, they came early to us.
To see what are you doing ’cause we can see all that is happening in your school.
(School J)
There is someone who is looking upon me that I can help. Because there are parents
that are coming into my class. There are parents in my community that are coming to
my house for assistance. (School K)
All of these support esteem. It’s not possible without esteem and confidence. If we
were not competent we would not be confident to collaborate with other schools. We
would not be as far as we are now. Because of confidence, confidence in educator as
person. (School A)
 20 L. Ebersöhn
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Photograph 15. New door and security gate (School E, 07-2013).

Figure 3 shows how a chain of mostly mini-successes in adaptation can constitute a

lifeline of teacher resilience. The lifeline chain in Figure 3 plots the chaotic chain of
constant adaptation as a somewhat more predictable lifeline of adaptation to chronic
adversity. In this lifeline of teacher resilience, both the process and episodic out-
comes are evident. It is also evident that the teachers’ adaptation is much more var-
ied than the ‘to be expected’ outcome often predicted in a high-risk ecology. (The
lifeline inference will naturally require additional quantitative research to provide
numeric justification of the ethnographic observations.) In this lifeline chain of
adapting to consistent strain in their careers, the teachers in the study mostly experi-
enced days of fulfilment and sometimes extraordinary days of thriving in their jobs.

7. Discussion
How do South African teachers, challenged by poverty-related adversity, craft their
lives to manage persistent adversity and remain in the profession? Teacher resilience
in poverty contexts means that teachers ceaselessly adapt in a sequence of linked
 Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice 21
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Photograph 16. New classrooms from unused buildings (School L, 07-2012).

incidents to respond to a procession of risks. Similar to the finding of Day and Gu

(2014) teachers in this South African cohort use particular traits (capacity for resil-
ience) to unite and direct their adaptive series of behaviors in order to transform
high risk schools into supportive spaces where they sometimes thrive, sometimes
feel distressed and mostly function effectively as teachers.
Building on capacity findings posited by Day and Gu (2014) in this study partic-
ular capacities became evident as part of the repertoire of capacity traits teachers
draw on for resilience. Intrapersonal capacity included especially positive affect
(optimism), perseverance and innovativeness, while interpersonal capacity related to
flocking (including networking). A driver of teacher adaptation seems to be positive
affect and, particularly, optimism that a high-risk school context can be changed into
a safe and supportive school context. To this end, the teachers in the study used per-
severance and flocking as traits to employ pragmatically what was available in a
context of scarcity to implement innovative buffering strategies. In order for the
teachers to be free to teach while also dealing with cumulative risk, they used net-
working with an array of partners to implement innovations. In terms of processes,
the teacher adaptation appeared to be unending with the teachers generating series
of novel innovations as new risks emerged.
The link between resilience outcomes and teacher affect was also apparent in
findings. Teacher happiness and thriving seemed to occur when the teachers could
see that their innovations were changing high-risk schools into inclusive and sup-
portive spaces (for high-need students and their families). Maladaptation occurred
when the teachers felt isolated and not acknowledged for their attempts to promote
resilience. By and large, however, teacher resilience was indicated by relentless posi-
tive adaptation enabling the teachers to teach on a day-to-day basis despite chronic
and cumulative adversity. Potentially, this continued positive adaptation in the con-
text of the conditions and environment may mirror ‘everyday resilience’ (Day &
Gu, 2014), and indicates a path for future research in chronic adversity and scarce
resource teaching contexts.
 22 L. Ebersöhn
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Photograph 17. Expanding school library (School A, 10-2010).

+
* Thriving
+ *
+ Positive adaptation
-

-
Maladaptation
+

-
+

Figure 2. A chain of ups and downs: resilience and poverty as a successive process of
adaptation incidences.
 Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice 23

Some thriving
outcomes: pride,
model resilience to

perseverance, pragmatic innovation, flocking,

others and inspire
Resilience traits teachers used in adaptive
processes : positive affect (optimism),

Variability in adaptive outcomes

Mostly positive
adaptation
outcomes: fulfilled,
eustress, free to
teach
networking.

Expected
adaptation
outcomes: adaptive
coping with
limitations to teach

Some
maladaptation
outcomes:
distress/burnout
because of multiple
roles, teacher-
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Lifeline-chain: successive, uninterrupted adaptive incidences constitute policy divides

linked processes of adaptation in chronic adversity.
Processes use traits to share collectively available resources by flocking,
networking.
Aim: optimism that resilience strategies can change high risk school
setting into space of teaching, learning and development.

Chronic adaptation: appraisal of (i) risk sequence and (ii) available

protective resources (internal: traits, coping strategies & external)

Poverty context: chronic and cumulative risk

Figure 3. Lifeline of resilience: constant adaptation to chronic adversity.

Work engagement theory may help in understanding the results of this study.
Schaufeli and Bakker (2004) describe work engagement as a positive, satisfying,
work-related state of mind that is typified by vigor, dedication, and absorption. Con-
versely, burnout (the other side of the work engagement coin) is marked by exhaus-
tion, mental distance, and low professional efficacy. Teachers who are engaged will
be involved and enthusiastic in the workplace. Macey and Schneider (2008) explain
that employee engagement consists of state, trait, and behavioral engagement.
Table 2 below integrates the results presented earlier with these engagement concep-
tualizations.
It follows that teacher resilience in poverty settings mirrors work engagement.
Resilience for these teachers is either the result of (or leads to) work engagement.
The state of mind of teachers is that of re-imagining and recreating high-risk schools
into inclusive spaces of teaching and learning. They use traits of optimism and
flocking together to employ joint resources effectively (even though such resources
are scarce). Their behavioral engagement in the workplace reflects serial adaptation.
Instances of burnout do occur – where their vigor is less and their exhaustion more
pronounced. In such times of distress (within a much wider net of positive
adaptation and work engagement), teachers are not absorbed and dedicated to their
 24 L. Ebersöhn

Table 2. Teacher resilience, poverty and work engagement.

Employee
engagement Conceptualisation
State Job satisfaction, organisational
commitment, job involvement,
psychological empowerment, positive
affect
Trait Inclination to experience world from a
particular vantage point (including
personal initiative, positive affect)
Behavioural Directly observable behaviour in the
engagement work context: discretionary effort
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Exemplars of data – not an
exhaustive list
Satisfaction to leverage job as
teacher to be useful to students in
high risk school communities
Confidence, competence and
increased self-esteem
Happiness and optimism to recreate
schools and inspire resilience in
others in need
Initiative to collaborate for shared
support
Teachers are available at their
homes for parents

(extra time, brainpower, energy, doing Teachers fulfil multiple roles

more than expected in role required by cumulative risk
performance) Teachers use limited resources
(classrooms, water tanks,
playgrounds) in original ways

profession but, rather, feel ineffective and not useful. Conversely, eustress (not dis-
tress) signifies teacher resilience. The lifeline chain of teacher resilience depicts how
teachers maintain vigour, dedication and absorption through unrelenting resilience
processes built on their work engagement state, traits, and adaptive behaviors.

8. Conclusion
Whether or not the sustained teaching of South African teachers is quality teaching
falls outside of the scope of this article and merits additional inquiry. In addition,
one wonders whether the normativity of chronic poverty nullifies the presence of
adversity as ‘significant’? If a teacher is born in a poverty setting, studies amidst
high levels of inequality and then teaches in a similar setting, does this characteristic
hardship then continue to constitute significant adversity? And if adversity is not sig-
nificant, should we still be studying resilience and poverty? On the basis of the tea-
cher conversation extracts and the visual data, my tentative answer would be that
chronic poverty (insider-normative or outsider-unfamiliar) remains recognizable as
significant adversity. Teacher expressions of exultation in being able to traverse
amongst the irritating constant buzz and bite of a myriad of minute and gigantic
poverty-challenges seem to speak of achievement, rather than apathy and everyday
ease.
Based on the findings discussed in this article, some recommendations can be
made for teacher training in resource-constrained societies. A first would be to
develop a curriculum that prepares pre-service teachers for the chronic and cumula-
tive nature of risk in poverty. Such a curriculum should also equally foreground the
presence of resources – despite resource scarcity. Resources that can be identified
and developed as part of a teacher professionalism agenda would include knowledge
of teacher resilience traits (optimism, modeling innovation, pragmatism, persever-
ance, collaboration, and flocking). Examples of pragmatic innovations that promote
resilience could be presented as case studies. Pre-service teachers should also be
 Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice 25

prepared for the constancy of adaptation required in poverty settings and shown
how traits can be mechanisms to sustain such lifetime processes.
In my long-term partnering with teachers in the currently transforming South
Africa, I have been able to observe and start understanding aspects of teacher resil-
ience. The images shared in this article of teacher resilience in the least equal society
in the world may add to current knowledge on teacher resilience and resilience per
se in chronic poverty settings.

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