Ordinary Magic Resilience in Development

by Masten, Ann S.

• ISBN13: 9781462557660
• ISBN10: 146255766X
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781462557677
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2025-05-21
• Publisher: The Guilford Press

Summary

Fully updated with key advances in theory, methods, and research, the second edition of this landmark work features an expanded conceptual framework and a more global perspective on threats to human development, including climate change, war, poverty, racial injustice, and pandemics. Pioneering resilience expert Ann S. Masten illuminates the ordinary but powerful processes that allow many children exposed to trauma and adversity to survive, adapt, and even thrive. The book traces fundamental adaptive systems that have evolved and function synergistically at the neurobiological, psychological, social, community, and cultural levels. Using a range of case examples to illustrate complex concepts, Masten provides a cogent resilience framework for promoting positive development in children at risk.

New to This Edition

• Advances in neurobiology, more international (including non-Western) findings and examples, new discussions of cultural identity development, up-to-date intervention research, and more.
• Heightened focus on the interactions of multiple systems--including families, schools, culture, and communities--in supporting children's resilience.
• Increased attention to the impact of structural inequality, poverty, and intergenerational trauma.
• Coverage of rapidly emerging threats--the risks posed to children by multisystem, cascading disasters, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Author Biography

Ann S. Masten, PhD, is Regents Professor of Child Development and Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota. An internationally known expert on resilience in human development, she has over 300 publications in scholarly journals and books. Dr. Masten is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a past president of the Society for Research in Child Development, and a past president of Division 7 (Developmental Psychology) of the American Psychological Association (APA). She is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the APA. Dr. Masten is a recipient of the Grawemeyer Award in Psychology, the Distinguished Career Contributions to Science Award from the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology (APA Division 53), and the Mentor Award and the Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society from APA Division 7. Other honors include the Smith College Medal and an honorary doctorate from Erasmus University of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. 

Table of Contents

I. Introduction and Conceptual Overview
1. Introduction
2. Models and Methods of Research on Resilience
II. Studies of Individual Resilience
3. Resilience in a Community Sample: The Project Competence Longitudinal Study
4. Overcoming Disadvantage and Economic Crisis: Children Experiencing Homelessness
5. Mass Trauma and Extreme Adversities: Resilience in War, Terrorism, and Disaster
III. Adaptive Systems in Resilience
6. The Short List and Implicated Adaptive Systems
7. The Neurobiology of Resilience
8. Resilience in the Context of Families and Family Resilience
9. Resilience in the Context of Schools 
10. Resilience in the Context of Culture and Community 
IV. Moving Forward: Implications for Action and Future Research
11. A Resilience Framework for Action 
12. Conclusions: Takeaways, Controversies, and New Horizons 
Glossary
Abbreviations 
References 
Index