Resilience in Russian youth

Abstract

In this paper, the results of testing on the Russian national sample with the Child and Youth Resilience Measure, developed in the framework of the International Resilience Project (Ungar et al., 2008. The study of youth resilience across cultures: Lessons from a pilot study of measurement development. Research in Human Development, 5, 166–180), are presented. Resilience of young Russian people (students of the senior classes of high school who successfully socialise; students of a special school for pupils with emotional and behavioural difficulties, who come into conflict with the law, family or community; orphan adolescents living in state-run orphanages; and first-year Psychology students) is described in a dimension of such factors as ‘relationships’, ‘culture’, ‘personality traits’ and ‘community’. Some specifics and differences of the four groups are discussed.

Keywords::

• resilience
• students with EBD
• youth
• orphans
• measurement of resilience

Introduction

Adolescence and youth are transitional periods which are especially important for the development of healthy adaptation abilities, and there are a number of difficulties, such as using narcotic drugs and other toxic substances, sexual experience, violence, emotional traumas and other problems, that make this age especially dangerous (Kilpatrick et al., 2000). It is also alarming that in the period between adolescence (10–14 years) and youth (15–19 years), mortality rate increases more than twofold (Millstein, Petersen, & Nightingale, 1993). In this connection, the problems of social adaptation of adolescents and youths have begun to receive closer attention over the last decade.

The development of individual adaptation abilities is greatly influenced by risk and defence factors. Defence factors (resiliency factors) include personal or situational variables that reduce the risk of the development of maladaptation in the individual, while risk factors act the other way round – they make it more probable that the individual will have difficulties. Defence and risk factors are considered processes and not absolute values because one and the same event or condition may act both as a defence or risk factor depending on the general context in which it arises (Rutter & Rutter, 1993). Both normal and asocial conducts of the adolescent greatly depends on the social context. To understand this context, it is necessary to take into account both proximal (close) and distant (remote) events, and those events that are directly affecting the adolescent in a specific situation and at a specific time (Mash & Wolfe, 2005). The social conditions and life experience of the adolescent should be considered in our current political and economical situation within the context of family, society, culture as a whole and his/her relationship with his/her peers (Makhnach & Laktionova, 2005). It should be noted that resilient adolescents adapt themselves to a dangerous environment thanks to their firm confidence in themselves, their skills of overcoming difficulties and ability to avoid dangerous situations; they are capable of withstanding the dangers that they encounter or recover afterwards (Zimmerman & Arunkumar, 1994). Such adolescents often show their expertise, when they find themselves in stressful conditions, or come back to the previous healthy level of expertise after a traumatic experience or stress (Werner, 1993).

It is important to note that resilience is not a universal, unconditional or permanent quality of an adolescent life; it changes depending on the type of stress, its context and other factors. Some adolescents can be resilient to some specific stressors, but not to others. Moreover, resilience can change with time and with a change in conditions (Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000). Adolescents' resilience is connected with a ‘protective triad’ of resources and health-promoting events, involving strengths of the child, the family, and school/community (Luthar, 2006). As is known, the notion of resilience is connected with continuous interactions between defence and risk factors which are linked with the individual himself and arise between the individual and his environment (Mash & Wolfe, 2005). If we take into consideration that ‘the social situation of bringing up children in present-day Russia is in a state of crisis and unfavourable’ (Nikitina, 2003), then the problem of defining the notion of adolescent resilience and of the factors that develop it is especially important. Ungar (2005) defined this notion as the ability of a human being to manage the resources of his/her own health and to use the family, society and culture for this purpose in a socially acceptable way. Thus, agreeing that resilience is determined by the risk and defence factors, we define resilience as the individual's ability to manage his/her own resources, providing a high limit of personal adaptation in the context of personal development, as well as social fulfilment of human beings in different social and cultural norms and environmental conditions (Makhnach & Laktionova, 2007).

In this paper, we look at the social factors affecting adolescents' resilience: relations with the other family members, significant relatives and friends, peers, community and culture. According to Erikson's (1968) stages of psychosocial development, our sample may have all the features of the adolescence period (13–19 years); however, according to Keniston's (1971) concept of post-adolescence, we can consider that period as post-adolescence. At this stage, there is the transition to adulthood with various steps (finishing studies, entering the labour force, separating from the parental household, early marriage) and realisation of becoming an adult member in the society. According to Keniston (1971, p. 6), ‘post-adolescence are yet to find their own relationship to society and are encountered with vocational questions’; he proposed to name this stage the youth stage. During youth, there is a conflict between one's identity as an individual, including values, identity or beliefs and societal demands. Youth is a time when the individual begins to get a clearer picture of who they are as a person. This too relates to Erikson's stage of adolescence, and identity exploration, which is a part of the early ages of emerging adulthood (Arnett, 2000; Erikson, 1968, pp. 135–136; Keniston, 1971, p. 8; Tanner & Arnett, 2009).

Influence of society

The leading role in the personal development of a child, i.e. in the character of his/her socialisation is played by social factors. Social factors age psychophysical and personal psychosocial development which can be disrupted both quantitatively and qualitatively. The specific features of the present-day child raising situation in Russian society are the following: large-scale negative phenomena, stability of asocial tendencies in the child and adolescent environment, a high degree of social maladaptation of the young generation and worsening of social problems of present-day children. The most significant factor that brings about these social deformations is the poverty of a majority of Russian families with young children. The sociopolitical transition in Eastern Europe is a transition from sociopolitical systems in which personal control was not a normative standard to systems in which personal control and personal life goals have become an emergent property of the restructuring sociopolitical contexts. This contrast could lead to a general perception of greater opportunities and, as a result, higher levels of well-being and perceived control in the Eastern European contexts relative to the Western contexts (Grob, Little, Wanner, & Wearing, 1996). It was found that economic development of the country affected the level of well-being even beyond the effects of personality, and the influence of the economic well-being was proportionate to the poverty of the people (Diener, Diener, & Diener, 1995). Exosystems (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), the institutional environments in which children's caregivers interact and services and policies are designed and delivered, have rarely been the focus of resilience research except among social development organizations (Boyden & Mann, 2005).

Let us consider how the social institution of school influences the adolescents; ideally, its influence must aim at attaining the common goal of any education system, i.e. teaching, upbringing and personal development. The school, at the present stage of its development, is not a social institution facilitating socialisation of adolescents. The targets it sets itself are practically limited to those of teaching; it cannot satisfy such needs of students as a relationship of trust with grown-ups (aspects of upbringing) or their professional or personal self-fulfilment. Even for those adolescents who are not inclined to take behavioural risks and for whom learning activities, as regards their value and aim components, are well developed, the school does not solve the problem of including them into the system of social relations encouraging absorption of certain knowledge and skills. The predominating focus on didactic objectives is provoking for those adolescents who, for various reasons, make slow academic progress. To compensate their low social status, these adolescents often show deviant behaviour, which often disguises the processes of achieving personal self-assertion in the immediate environment. It was found that Russian youths reported significantly more everyday stress, using two adaptive coping strategies more, using social support more and being more depressed than American youths (Jose et al., 1998).

Over the past 10 years, the number of children, already in primary school, feeling unsure of themselves because of school problems, has grown almost 10 times, and the number of primary school pupils who feel alarmed by learning and by their teachers has increased 8 times. A third of children are frustrated in their need to succeed, feeling unsure of themselves, their powers and abilities. In as many as 60% of junior school-age children, the adaptive systems of the organism are seriously disrupted; the immune system of 70–80% of children is overstrained. All this means that the number of problematic adolescents is likely to increase to the extent of two-thirds of the whole generation (Nikitina, 2003). Therefore, the school in Russia is a factor aiding the development of anxiety in adolescents. It is important to note that pupils who make poor academic progress attach a lot of importance to the social and psychological atmosphere at school and to the character of their relationship with teachers at school. Poor academic progress lowers the social status, which brings about the feeling of social failure in school as well as in a social institution as a whole. The same position is characteristic of adolescents with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD), who evaluate the negative aspects of the school from the point of view of the existing social relations and the ‘inadequacy’ of social appraisals.

A survey in 2002 demonstrated certain changes of values among Russian adolescents. The absolute number of school students, who consider the value of happy family life and good relations with people as their life priorities, has significantly decreased. Over the recent years, the stereotype of ‘a person who can create a stable family’ has been obviously forced out of the adolescent milieu. This decrease of importance of this social stereotype in the adolescent milieu shows that the adolescent subculture is sensitive to the social and cultural transformations of the institution of the family in Russian society. And it should be noted that for adolescents who are not inclined to take behavioural risks, the values of ‘happy family life’ and ‘good relations with parents’ are much more significant than for EBD adolescents (Sobkin, Abrosimova, Adamchuk, & Baranova, 2005). Besides the above-indicated specific features of the value orientations system of present-day adolescents, we should also note a relatively low significance of the ideas of knowledge of culture, self-knowledge and development of their own abilities. It is evident that views and ideas adopted by young people reflect the ideals of present-day society and that non-material values, values of a higher order, are inaccessible to most adolescents until their basic needs are satisfied (Rean, 2003).

Thus, it can be stated that a characteristic change in value orientations took place in the 1990s and the first years of the twenty-first century in the adolescent subculture under the influence of the general social and cultural changes in the country.

Influence of culture on the resilience of adolescents

One of the most important influences of the environment on the person is human experience connected with cultural identity. Having its own patterns of behaviour, rituals and beliefs transmitted by teaching, every culture develops certain common personal characteristics in the majority of its representatives.

In recent years, the number of cultural and education institutions has steadily decreased in Russia, and their activities targeted at children and adolescents have diminished. On the whole, after a decade of reforms, the social infrastructure for children is in a poor state. The media has become one of the most influential institutions of upbringing; their impact on the development of world view positions, ideas and value orientations of a significant part of adolescents has increased in the recent decades. In this situation, it is rather ineffective to prohibit adolescents from getting access to information that is considered harmful for their physical and mental health or moral development. The educational potential of the media, literature and art has weakened. The media is actively developing the stereotype of making easy money in adolescents, which is aided by advertising of expensive entertainment and leisure industry. Society is extremely concerned by the fact that the media is actively spreading ideas of violence and cruelty, portraying organised crime, small- and large-scale swindling as heroic and justifying immorality and depravity. The processes of informing adolescents are, as a rule, uncontrolled, and adolescents are regarded by information producers as an object of influence. In the recent decade, Russian society has seriously changed its evaluation of the role of religion in the history and culture of Russia: the number of believers has significantly increased, especially among children, adolescents and young people. According to a number of studies, more than 50% of those aged 16 and 17 are religious; this figure is about 1.5 times as high as the average and is higher than in any other age group (Nalchajyan, 2001). In Russia, it is very difficult to use traditions for socialisation of children and adolescents because most traditions were destroyed in Soviet time and new traditions have not yet taken root. As regards new traditions, we believe that they mostly consist of an attempt at reviving the predominant officially recognised religious traditions of Russia (Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism). For Russian adolescents, religion is rather a cultural norm, part of ethnic identity and a tribute to ethnic traditions (Mchedlov, 1998).

Special mention should be made of the problem of nationalism and ethnic hostility in present-day Russian society. When studying the problem, I found out that it is not the gender or the level of education that makes a person a ‘nationalist’ – only the age is a really significant factor: young people are more oriented to negative ethnic stereotypes; when they become older these stereotypes weaken.

The most important factors of the growth of ethnic negativism in the youth milieu are the following:

• Society: a state of crisis in society, destruction of the value world, the absence of a comprehensive ‘idea’ of bringing up new generations.

• Ethnicity: youth needs a certain group ‘idea’; therefore, ethnicity can provide psychological protection in a complex social reality.

• Age: adolescents differ from grown-ups in their perception of reality; they divide people into ‘our own’ and ‘aliens’, which encourages nationalist feeling (Sikevich, 1996).

Also, there is a slightly higher number of studies on Bronfenbrenner's (1979) fourth level, the macrosystem, which is the laws, customs and cultural practices that provide opportunities for children's positive development under stressful conditions of life.

The family as an environment factor of the development of relationship skills

One of the most important environment factors is the influence of the family. Any pattern of parents' behaviour has an impact on the personal development of the child, and later – of the adolescent. In the adolescent age, like at the previous development stages, the family maintains its significance as the source of warmth and support. This support is of special importance because the adolescent comes into the phase of intensive development of the ‘me’ concept often accompanied by contradictory feelings, extreme evaluations, an acute feeling of inferiority and inability to adequately and constructively respond to a failure. In this situation, it is the family that can provide the basic feeling of security, it being the source of constant support and a source of calm and balanced assessment of the adolescent's qualities; it can diminish the sense of alarm that the adolescent experiences in new or stressful situations. Present-day Russian adolescents continue to have a positive emotional attitude to their families, but there is a tendency towards a certain alienation of the adolescent from his/her family and a disinclination to try to solve his/her problems using his/her parents' advice and experience (Yartsev, 1999). An adolescent's dependency on his/her family is still substantially great. Adolescents want to have parents who ‘set a good example’; adolescents want to be proud of their parents, to see them as ‘people that can be admired’ and then, as a rule, they feel sufficiently comfortable in this world (Rice, 1996). The family in Russia is, on the whole, a weak collective educator. The Russian family does not fully control the spare time of children and adolescents, and has less influence on the child than other socialisation factors (Nikitina, 2003). Orlov (1995) notes that nowadays the central problem of psychology of the Russian family is to preserve the family as the most important basic element of society and to ensure transmission by the family of society's culture from one generation to another. But today, the Russian family is left to face alone the problems of its children (going away from home and vagrancy, alcohol and drug addiction, disruption of sexual orientation and other behavioural disruptions that create the risk of problematic development) and has to grope in the dark. ‘Problematic families’ set the example of alcohol and drug abuse; in dysfunctional, conflict-prone families, the confused character of family relationship results in the domination of episodic intervention in the children's problematic behaviour. In families, which are free from grave problems, the predominant feeling is that of anxiety as to how the situation is developing; it is often combined with confrontation regarding the influence of peers, the child's friends from the class and the neighbourhood, i.e. the dominating tendency is to try to isolate the child from the milieu of children and adolescents. This is impossible, for obvious reasons, and does not prevent various forms of risk behaviour and ‘experimenting’ with drugs or drug abuse. It is evident that many Russian families are suffering from lack of competence in developing positive social attitudes in children.

Peers as an environmental factor of developing relationship skills

An adolescents' behaviour is essentially a collective and group behaviour. Communication with friends is a source of development not only of new interests but also of behaviour rules. It is connected with the fact that certain requirements for friendly relations arise among adolescents (Rean, 2003). Nowadays, there is an opinion that it is the peer environment that is the factor explaining the influence of the environment on personal development: it is the experience of being in child and adolescent groups, and not the experience of being in the family that explains how the environment influences personal development.

Thus, the peer group acts as a factor of socialisation of the individual, encouraging him/her to accept new behaviour rules and giving him/her experience which exerts a long-term and sustained influence on personal development. From this point of view, relationship with the parents is important for early development, but later the role of the peers becomes more important for personal development, and it is their influence that is stronger (Pervin & John, 1997).

Studies show that the phenomenon of adolescent conformism is changing significantly. The present-day Russian adolescent is more independent of the peer group than adolescents of the 1980s and 1990s. Today he/she is more inclined to have his/her own mentality, style of behaviour and clothes, and is much more tolerant of other adolescents being ‘different’ from the majority of their peers. The company of peers continues to influence the adolescent, but its subjective significance has somewhat decreased, and this lower conformism is characteristic of working school students (Yartsev, 1999, pp. 17–19). When you consider the peculiarity of adolescence as a period of identity formation, then, we can speak about an unstable system that is forced to adapt to instability. ‘Generation is stepping into the void. No young people are out from the existing social structure and the structure of slipping out of her feet’ (Shabanov, 2005, p. 81). We come to the conclusion that the peer influence is important especially in this situation when the Russian family's influence on the child is weaker than that of other socialisation factors. The school simply does not set itself the task of personal development and upbringing; the influence of culture has been reduced to a minimum, so let us ask ourselves: what is the influence of youth subculture on modern Russian adolescents? The phenomenon of youth subculture was for a long time regarded as a ‘deviation’, and adolescent groups themselves as a threat to positive socialisation. Modern approaches to the studying of youth subculture are focused on its socialising (adaptive and integrative) function. Subculture is interpreted as a space for playing and experimenting with the rules, values and hierarchy of the world of grown-ups. In this context, the use of psychoactive substances is also regarded as a way of experimenting. Thus, adolescents' ‘experiments’ are dangerous for their physical and mental health. In the literature, there appeared a thesis that youth subculture is a drugs subculture (Malikova, 2000; Zhuravleva, 2000). Studies of the adolescent subculture community show that there are mechanisms of reproduction of subculture rules, behaviour models and symbols from generation to generation; thus, the traditions of psychoactive substances use are transmitted.

Most of the above-mentioned approaches to investigations of resilience have spawned studies across different social science disciplines and medicine. They refer us to measure-specific factors at different levels of human ecology. Borrowing Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecological model, one can cluster these studies by focus, beginning with the individual and variations in personality traits, self-esteem, relational features, culture implementation and other foundations of psychological coping under stressful circumstances (Diener et al., 1995; Kilpatrick et al., 2000; Luthar et al., 2000; Rutter & Rutter, 1993).

Participants

The participants were adolescents, high school students, and first-year college and university students (n = 194). Initially, a board of experts suggested the participation of, in our research, both boys/young men and girls/young ladies, who find different ways of coping with problems that they have to face in the course of growing up.

Information on the participants of the research: out of the 194 young Russians who took part in the research, 42.9% were girls and 57.1% were boys/young men. The average age of the participants was 15.4 years. Most of them were students of the 11th class; however, they ranged from 8th class pupils to first-year university students. All the participants were regarded by their community as persons successfully (or unsuccessfully) coping with problems on the basis of behaviour rules accepted in the relevant culture. Some participants had varied experience of living in unfavourable living conditions. Our sample consisted of four groups of adolescents. The first group were adolescents of the senior class of high school (Group 1) who successfully socialise, take part in the life of their group, are not inclined to take behavioural risks and observe normative rules of behaviour. These adolescents made up the so-called normative group (n = 30). Another group of adolescents (n = 50) were pupils of a special school for EBD (Group 2) adolescents. The third group (n = 56) were adolescents living in State-run orphanages (Group 3). Approximately 90% of the orphans were the so-called ‘social orphans’, i.e. one or both of their parents were alive, but lead an asocial way of life. For this reason, the State deprived such parents (sometimes partly) of their right to bring up children and placed the children in State-run orphanages. The fourth group (Group 4) consisted of psychology students who were in their first year of university studies (n = 58).

Measure

In an effort to explore methodological challenges investigating resilience across cultures and contexts, a team of 35 researchers from 11 countries with varied disciplinary and cultural backgrounds were brought together to examine successful developmental outcomes associated with resilience. Our goal was to understand patterns of homogeneity and heterogeneity in a purposive sample of young people under stress in differentiated communities around the world. Among the tasks undertaken during online communication and face-to-face meetings in 2003 and 2005 was the development of the 28-item Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM). Using an iterative mixed methods design, a total of 32 domains were identified by the team for study across all cultures and questions solicited from community advisory committees. Domains included individual qualities such as assertiveness, problem-solving, self-efficacy and optimism; relational factors like mentors and quality of parenting; community factors such as opportunities for age-appropriate work, exposure to violence and meaningful rites of passage; and cultural factors such as affiliation with a religious organization, tolerance for others' beliefs and experiences of cultural dislocation. Questions that were too specific to one culture or context were administered in only one setting, with more generic questions compiled and aggregated from the suggestions made by local advisory committees in each research site (Ungar et al., 2008).

In Russia, at the initial stage of the experiment, the members of the Russian board of experts analysed and discussed each point of the first, national part of the CYRM (Section 2 in Test Manual) (Ungar & Liebenberg, 2005).1 These points were selected from a group of first-year students, future psychologists, who were asked to write not fewer than 10 additional questions that, in their opinion, could help to understand resilience of Russian adolescents.2 They proposed approximately 150 questions; out of them, 100 questions were selected, out of which with the help of experts 15 were selected for studying adolescent' resilience, taking into consideration Russia's specific conditions of that. These questions were in Section 2 of the CYRM Test Manual.

All the data were received on the basis of the first, national part of the CYRM. Each question was measured with five items (rated on five-point Likert scales) – Table 1. This instrument assesses four domains (i.e. the personality traits domain, which includes the specific areas of appearance, personality characteristics, personal attitudes towards addictions and future profession; the relationship domain, which includes relationships and conflict/warmth with parents, peers, attitudes towards parent care; the community domain, which includes school matters, access to education, estimation of the options for leisure, feeling safe in the country; and the culture domain, which includes the likeness of the culture where the adolescents are from, support for the skinhead movement).

Table 1 Average score of the CYRM items (national part) in four groups.

	Scales		High school students	Orphans	EBD adolescents	College students
1	Tr	Do you think that everything depends on you?	4.2	4.0	3.5	3.9
2	Cul	Do you like your country (culture) where are you living?	3.6	4.0	3.7	3.6
3	Tr	Do your think that your friends have a positive attitude toward alcohol drink?	3.2	2.4	3.0	2.9
4	Cul	Do you support skinhead movement at least as an idea?	1.6	1.7	2.3	1.3
5	Rel	Do you feel the warmth of the relatives and your home is not only the place for sleep?	4.4	4.1	4.4	4.2
6	Com	Do you have possibility to get education which you want to have?	4.1	3.6	2.4	4.1
7	Tr	Do you think that you will be self-fulfilled in the future?	2.9	3.8	4.1	4.1
8	Rel	Does your family's economic and social background influence your peers' attitudes toward you?	2.0	3.1	2.0	2.0
9	Tr	Are you afraid to be addicted to drugs (alcohol) dependency?	2.6	3.6	3.1	2.0
10	Rel	Do you feel needed by you family members and peers?	3.7	3.4	4.2	4.0
11	Com	Do you think that youth in your country have enough options for leisure?	2.7	2.8	3.3	2.3
12	Rel	Do your parents know when you feel bad?	3.5	3.0	4.3	3.5
13	Com	Do you feel safe in your country?	2.6	2.7	3.1	2.4
14	Rel	Do you consider the members of your family to be guides for you in life?	3.3	3.0	3.6	3.3
15	Tr	Are you certain about your future profession?	3.5	3.7	3.2	4.0

Note: Rel, relationships; Tr, traits and personality characteristics; Cul, culture; Com, community.

Results

The factorial validity of the characteristics as indicators of resilience is tested using confirmatory factor analysis (varimax normalised). A matrix was made for each group; the cumulative loading of the first four factors was for the school students group: 71.6% of the data; for the orphans group: 55.2%; for the deviant adolescent groups: 59.8%; for college (university) students: 68.9% (Figure 1). Extraction was made with the method of principal components. Factor loadings on the four factors for four groups are presented in Tables 2345 and show that the factors contain items that load reasonably well. These results suggest that the four-factor structure provides an adequate measurement model for all groups' data sets.

Figure 1 Factor loadings in four groups.

Table 2 Factor loadings (varimax normalised) for Group 1 (n = 30).

Factors	Rel (1)	Cul (2)	Tr (3)	Com (4)
No. of items
1	0.34	− 0.28	0.31	− 0.25
2	0.26	− 0.82	− 0.31	0.15
3	− 0.40	− 0.05	0.25	− 0.75
4	0.59	− 0.03	− 0.50	− 0.47
5	0.85	0.09	0.45	0.16
6	− 0.31	0.27	0.72	− 0.28
7	0.24	0.18	0.87	0.16
8	0.36	0.48	0.12	− 0.08
9	− 0.17	− 0.02	− 0.71	0.15
10	0.64	− 0.57	0.20	0.09
11	− 0.25	− 0.73	0.06	0.29
12	0.85	0.26	0.06	0.04
13	− 0.03	− 0.26	− 0.00	0.76
14	0.34	0.74	0.31	0.28
15	0.80	0.09	− 0.06	0.10
Expl. var	3.66	2.66	2.63	1.79
Prp. totl	0.24	0.18	0.18	0.12

Notes: Extraction: principal components. Eigenvalues >1; marked loadings are >0.60000. Rel, relationships; Tr, traits and personality characteristics; Cul, culture; Com, community; Expl. var, explained variance; Prp. totl, proportion of the total variation. Bold values signifies p < 0.05.

Table 3 Factor loadings (varimax normalised) for Group 2 (n = 50).

Factors	Tr (1)	Rel (2)	Com (3)	Cul (4)
No. of items
1	0.37	0.07	− 0.53	− 0.53
2	− 0.02	0.54	− 0.12	0.37
3	− 0.25	− 0.50	0.10	0.70
4	− 0.04	0.01	− 0.17	0.77
5	− 0.01	0.58	− 0.13	− 0.18
6	0.86	− 0.09	0.00	− 0.01
7	0.28	− 0.04	− 0.74	0.28
8	− 0.44	− 0.01	0.15	0.11
9	− 0.45	0.31	0.32	0.39
10	− 0.32	0.74	0.01	− 0.05
11	0.24	0.05	0.80	− 0.16
12	0.06	0.15	− 0.26	0.58
13	0.12	0.65	0.65	0.26
14	0.20	0.65	0.25	− 0.07
15	0.84	0.28	0.33	0.07
Expl. var	2.33	2.49	1.93	2.22
Prp. totl	0.16	0.17	0.13	0.15

Notes: Extraction: principal components. Eigenvalues >1; marked loadings are >0.60000. Rel, relationships; Tr, traits and personality characteristics; Cul, culture; Com, community; Expl. var, explained variance; Prp. totl, proportion of the total variation. Bold values signifies p < 0.05.

Table 4 Factor loadings (varimax normalised) for Group 3 (n = 56).

Factors	Rel (1)	Cul (2)	Com (3)	Tr (4)
No. of items
1	− 0.03	0.03	0.53	0.40
2	0.26	− 0.76	0.13	− 0.01
3	0.20	0.68	− 0.06	− 0.11
4	− 0.01	0.64	0.05	0.01
5	0.59	− 0.33	0.07	− 0.20
6	0.68	0.21	0.15	0.36
7	0.32	− 0.32	0.30	0.56
8	0.05	0.29	0.71	− 0.31
9	0.07	0.04	0.05	− 0.81
10	0.15	0.08	− 0.58	0.06
11	− 0.19	0.49	0.14	0.35
12	0.80	− 0.07	− 0.25	0.15
13	0.04	− 0.11	0.71	0.05
14	0.76	− 0.02	− 0.07	− 0.02
15	0.16	0.15	− 0.17	0.65
Expl. var	2.34	2.07	1.87	1.99
Prp. totl	0.16	0.14	0.12	0.13

Note: Extraction: principal components. Eigenvalues >1; marked loadings are >0.60000. Rel, relationships; Tr, traits and personality characteristics; Cul, culture; Com, community; Expl. var, explained variance; Prp. totl, proportion of the total variation. Bold values signifies p < 0.05.

Table 5 Factor loadings (varimax normalised) for Group 4 (n = 58).

Factors	Rel (1)	Tr (2)	Com (3)	Cul (4)
No. of items
1	− 0.70	− 0.10	0.27	0.09
2	− 0.06	0.06	0.65	− 0.44
3	− 0.08	− 0.77	0.28	0.19
4	− 0.01	0.05	− 0.07	− 0.82
5	0.68	0.01	0.39	0.01
6	0.35	0.84	0.04	− 0.07
7	0.15	0.73	− 0.01	0.26
8	0.09	− 0.19	0.57	0.42
9	0.54	− 0.57	− 0.19	− 0.27
10	0.78	0.25	0.19	0.10
11	0.19	− 0.07	0.75	0.19
12	0.84	0.08	0.32	0.16
13	0.59	0.42	0.49	− 0.02
14	0.84	0.09	− 0.03	0.06
15	0.05	0.48	0.06	0.70
Expl. var	3.82	2.69	2.04	1.79
Prp. totl	0.25	0.18	0.14	0.12

Note: Extraction: principal components. Eigenvalues >1; marked loadings are >0.60000. Rel, relationships; Tr, traits and personality characteristics; Cul, culture; Com, community; Expl. var, explained variance; Prp. totl, proportion of the total variation. Bold values signifies p < 0.05.

In the high school students group (Group 1), the factors were put in the following order (in the diminishing order of factor loadings): relationship (26.8%), culture (21.1%), personality traits (13.2%) and community (10.6%) – Table 2.

The first factor – relationship – included such questions as the following: ‘Do you feel the warmth of the relatives and your home is not only the place for sleep?’ (0.84); ‘Do your parents know when you feel bad?’ (0.84); ‘Do you feel needed by your family members and peers?’ (0.63). Question 15, ‘Are you certain about your future profession?’ (0.80), included in this factor, shows that this group are confident about their future and this is relational evidence of their inclusion in a relationship which is significant for them. Their confidence is strengthened by existing relationship with their family and friends. This relationship with their family and friends is of substantial importance for their choice of future profession.

The second factor – culture – included the following questions: ‘Do you like the country (culture) in which you live?’ ( − 0.82); ‘Do you think that youth in your country have enough options for leisure?’ ( − 0.73); ‘Do you consider the members of your family to be guides for you in life?’ (0.75); ‘Do you feel needed by your family members and peers?’ ( − 0.57); ‘Does your family's economic and social background influence your peers’ attitudes toward you?' (0.48). An analysis of the answers to these questions shows a tendency such that an adolescent who accepts his/her country and culture, who feels the support of his/her family and friends, and whose leisure is well organised gets a certain degree of freedom and independence from his/her family, social origin and material wealth.

The third factor – personality traits – included the following questions: ‘Do you think that you will be self-fulfilled in the future?’ (0.87); ‘Do you have the possibility of getting the education which you want to have?’ (0.72); ‘Are you afraid of being addicted to drugs or alcohol dependent?’ ( − 0.71); and ‘Do you support the skinhead movement at least as an idea?’ ( − 0.50). There is an inverse dependence: the more the school students are confident of their future and the greater the possibility of getting education, the less is the fear of alcohol or drugs addiction and the less is the probability of support for the skinhead movement by the Group 1 adolescents.

The fourth factor – community – in Group 1 included the following questions: ‘Do you feel secure in your country?’ (0.76); ‘Do your think that your friends have a positive attitude toward alcohol drink?’ ( − 0.75); and ‘Do you support the skinhead movement at least as an idea?’ ( − 0.47). The more secure the adolescents of this group feel, the less they are prone to alcohol abuse and the less they are likely to support the skinhead movement.

In Group 2, consisting of EBD adolescents, the first four factors were distributed as follows: personality traits factor (18.56%), relationship factor (17.07%), community factor (13.24%) and culture factor (10.95%) – Table 3. Cumulative eigenvalues for four factors are 59.81% of the data.

The first factor – personality traits – included the following questions: ‘Do you have the possibility of getting the education which you want to have?’ (0.86); ‘Are you certain about your future profession?’ (0.84); ‘Are you afraid of being addicted to drugs or alcohol dependent?’ ( − 0.45); and ‘Does your family's economic and social background influence your peers’ attitudes toward you?' ( − 0.44).

Having analysed this factor, we saw an inversely proportionate dependence between the confidence in their future of EBD adolescents and their fear of getting addicted to alcohol (drugs), and the dependence of attitude to them on their economic status and social background. For EBD adolescents, unlike the preceding groups, personality traits are a significant variable in determining their place in the world and occupy the first place.

The second factor – relationship – included the following questions: ‘Do you feel needed by your family members and peers?’ (0.74); ‘Do you consider the members of your family to be guides for you in life?’ (0.65); and ‘Do you feel the warmth of the relatives and your home’ (0.58).

Such high loadings of those items under the relationship factor, suggest family relationship may be interpreted as a defence reaction. But if for orphans this is a denial reaction and a sort of myth making, EBD adolescents simply do not want to discuss these questions with people that they do not know. This is rather a sensitive subject for them; they prefer not to discuss it. ‘Nobody will answer these questions any other way here’ – such were the words of one pupil of the school for EBD adolescents, where the test was conducted. Thus, though this factor is the second most important one, family relationship is not a resource for these adolescents. It is much more likely that it is the relationship with peers that can be a resource for them, and this is borne out by high figures of the answers to the question ‘Do you feel needed by your family members and peers?’; the average figure for this question is 4.2, which is higher than the averages in the other groups (Table 1).

The third factor – community – included the following questions: ‘Do you think that youth in your country have enough options for leisure?’ (0.80); ‘Does everything in your life depend on you?’ ( − 0.53); and ‘Do you think that you will be self-fulfilled in the future?’ ( − 0.74).

In this factor, there is an inverse dependence: the less protected EBD adolescents feel in their country and the less they believe that they have enough options of leisure, the more they rely on themselves. This is another confirmation of the fact that for them, personality traits play the lead role and occupy the first place. It is interesting to note an inverse dependence between the feeling of security and confidence that they will be self-fulfilled in future.

When we compare EBD adolescents with inmates of orphanages, we note the following difference: where orphaned adolescents, who do not feel needed by their family and peers and understand that their economic status and social background influence their peers' attitude towards them, primarily rely on the State that is responsible for them whereas EBD adolescents prefer to rely on themselves. This can explain their so-called asocial behaviour.

The fourth factor – culture – included the following questions: ‘Do you like the country (culture) in which you live?’ (0.37); ‘Do you support the skinhead movement at least as an idea?’ (0.77); ‘Do your think that your friends have a positive attitude toward alcohol drink?’ (0.70); and ‘Does everything in your life depend on you?’ ( − 0.53).

In this factor, we see an inverse dependence: the less an adolescent believes that much in his/her life depends on him/herself, the less he/she likes his/her country and the greater the danger of support for skinheads. In this group, we note the highest averages, as compared to the other groups, on the question ‘Do you support the skinhead movement at least as an idea?’ (2.3) and on positive attitude to alcohol (average figure: 3.0) (Table 1). In our opinion, this confirms the fact that, although the questions evaluating personality traits of the EBD adolescents' difficulties were collected in the first most loaded factor, personality traits are not essentially a resource. Such adolescents are used to relying only on themselves; they do not trust either society or grown-ups. The high figures (as compared to the other groups) in the answer to the question concerning support of skinheads may be regarded as a certain outward sign of an internal discomfort, fear and lack of confidence.

In Group 3, which consisted of inmates of orphanages, the first four factors amounted to 55.12% cumulative eigenvalues – Table 4. Accordingly, the relationship factor constituted 17.85%, the culture factor 13.91%, the community factor 12.72% and the personal traits factor 10.64%.

The first factor – relationship – included the following questions: ‘Do your parents know when you feel bad?’ (0.80); ‘Do you consider the members of your family to be guides for you in life?’ (0.76); and ‘Do you feel the warmth of the relatives and your home is not only the place to sleep?’ (0.59).

Such high figures in this factor undoubtedly indicate an interesting phenomenon. Such high figures in the relationship factor and, first of all, family relationship can be interpreted as a defence reaction of denial, a ‘tradition’ among orphans to idealise their absent families and family relationships. Although this factor occupies the first place for adolescent orphans, it does not reflect a real-life resource for these young people.

The second factor – culture – included the following questions: ‘Do you like the country (culture) in which you live?’ ( − 0.76); ‘Do your think that your friends have a positive attitude toward alcohol drink?’ (0.68); ‘Do you support skinhead movement at least as an idea?’ (0.64); and ‘Do you think that youth in your country have enough options for leisure?’ (0.49).

In this factor, we observe once again an inverse dependence between acceptance of one's country, the care by the society of the organisation of youth leisure and the attitude to alcohol and skinheads. Adolescents who have a positive attitude to their country and culture are not inclined to support the skinhead movement or to have relations with those who abuse alcohol. Thus, we see that a positive attitude to their country and culture is undoubtedly a resilience-enhancing factor for adolescents.

The third factor – community – included the following questions: ‘Do you feel safe in your country?’ (0.71); ‘Does your family's economic and social background influence your peers’ attitudes toward you?' (0.71); and ‘Do you feel needed by your family members and peers?’ ( − 0.58).

This factor shows the following tendency: an orphaned adolescent who does not feel that his/her friends or family need him/her begins to search for a third party – in our case, the State – which is responsible for him/her and on which he/she relies. For Russian orphans, such a situation is quite typical: society for them is represented by State officials who fully replace the family, who decide what is good and what is bad for an adolescent and who, to a great extent, determine the life trajectory of a young person's development. Such a child can rely on the State for everything, and the State develops dependency in an orphaned child declaring that taking care of an orphan is a task for the State (and not for society).

The fourth factor – personality traits – included the following questions: ‘Are you afraid to be addicted to drugs or alcohol dependent?’ ( − 0.81); ‘Are you certain about your future profession?’ (0.65); ‘Do you think that you will be self-fulfilled in the future?’ (0.56); and ‘Does everything in your life depend on you?’ (0.40).

This factor reflects an inverse dependence between an orphaned adolescent's confidence in his/her future and fear of addiction to alcohol or drugs. There is a high average value (4.0) of answers to the question ‘Does everything in your life depend on you?’, and in this case, we see an inadequate idea of themselves that orphaned adolescents have. The weakness of this factor is also shown by the fact that the personal traits factor in this group occupies only the fourth place.

In Group 4, which consisted of first-year Psychology students, the first four factors were in the following order: relationship factor (30.28%), personality traits factor (16.16%), community factor (13.58%) and culture factor (8.97%) – Table 5. Cumulative eigenvalues for first four factors are 68.98% of the data.

The first factor – relationship – included the following questions: ‘Do your parents know when you feel bad?’ (0.84); ‘Do you consider the members of your family to be guides for you in life?’ (0.84); ‘Do you feel needed by your family members and peers?’ (0.78); ‘Do you feel the warmth of the relatives and your home is not only the place for sleep?’ (0.68); and ‘Does everything in your life depend on you?’ ( − 0.70).

In this factor, in the group of students, there is an inverse dependence between their being sure that everything in their lives depends on them and the importance of relationships.

The second factor – personality traits – included the following questions: ‘Do you have possibility to get education which you want to have?’ (0.84); ‘Do your think that your friends have a positive attitude toward alcohol drink?’ ( − 0.77); ‘Do you think that you will be self-fulfilled in the future?’ (0.73); ‘Are you afraid to be addicted to drugs (alcohol) dependency?’ ( − 0.57); and ‘Are you certain about your future profession?’ (0.48).

In this group of students, there is an inverse dependence between being sure of their future and their friends' attitude to alcoholic drinks. Probably this is the phenomenon of socially desirable answers and, a more critical attitude to friends than to themselves. Such attitude to alcohol may also be explained by the fact that girls predominate in this group of students.

The third factor – community – consisted of the following questions: ‘Do you think that youth in your country have enough options for leisure?’ (0.75); ‘Do you feel secure in your country?’ (0.49); and ‘Does your family's economic and social background influence your peers’ attitudes toward you?' (0.57).

For interpretation of this factor, it is important to note the following fact: the questions ‘Do you think that youth in your country have enough options for leisure?’ and ‘Do you feel secure in your country?’ have the lowest average figure as compared with the other groups (2.3 and 2.4 points accordingly).

The fourth factor – culture – included the following questions: ‘Do you support skinhead movement at least as an idea?’ ( − 0.82); ‘Do you like the country (culture) in which you live?’ ( − 0.44); and ‘Are you certain about your future profession?’ (0.69). The average figure of answers to the question ‘Do you support skinhead movement at least as an idea?’ is the lowest as compared with the other groups: 1.2 points. This may be explained by the fact that the group consists mostly of girls. The average figure (4.1 points) of answers to the question ‘Are you certain about your future profession?’ is the highest as compared to the other groups. The inverse proportion between being certain one's future profession and support for the skinhead movement is not fortuitous. It is more difficult to explain the phenomenon of inverse dependence between being certain of one's future profession and acceptance of the country (culture) in which one lives. It can be probably explained as follows: the less the students rely on society and the country, the more they have to rely on themselves in their future professional activities.

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to test the influence of social factors on the development of the adolescents' resilience on a sample of four groups (high school students, first-year Psychology students, students of a specialised school for EBD adolescents and adolescent orphanage inmates) and to compare the results with the data published in literature. Both the studies under the Project on Resilience (www.resilienceproject.org) and this work were part of studying the resilience phenomenon' therefore, they had the additional purpose of specifying the structure of this notion and verifying the universality of a number of provisions.

The data that were gained confirm the main tendencies identified by Russian and foreign researchers. Thus, the significance of the traits and personal characteristics factor seems interesting within the structure of the factor complex in all the four groups.

The fact that it is EBD adolescents for whom this factor occupies the first place is well explained by the data gained by researchers (Kalmanovich, 2002; Sobkin et al., 2005) according to which it is in the sphere of life purposes that adolescents inclined to deviation are ‘more grown-up’ than their peers who are not inclined to deviant forms of behaviour. This is shown, in particular, by the fact that EBD adolescents put ‘self-reliance and independence’ among the most significant values (Sobkin et al., 2005) and that ‘adolescents who belong to this group are characterised by greater self-reliance, initiative and independence in attaining their goals and planning their activities’ (Kalmanovich, 2002, p. 15). EBD adolescents group who have the highest average figures in their answers to the question ‘Do you support skinhead movement at least as an idea?’ (2.3) and a positive attitude to alcohol (average value: 3.0) (Table 1), which shows that they are used to rely only on themselves and do not trust either society or grown-ups. It is quite logical that orphanage inmates have a low figure of this factor. The studies note that these adolescents are characterised by infantilism, slow development of self-determination and self-consciousness, lack of knowledge of oneself and non-acceptance of oneself as a person and inability to choose their own destiny; their self-consciousness is strongly influenced by a traumatic situation (leaving their families and living in an institution) which distorts their idea of themselves. The ideas that such adolescents have of themselves are little differentiated and often idealistic. Their further plans depend on the administration of the orphanage or are vague – ‘I'll be what I'll be’ – which leads to lack of professional orientation and, later, to disruption of working ability. As a result, they do not have all those social behaviour skills that are necessary for a successful adaptation in society (Gulina, 2002; Prihozhan & Tolstikh, 1990).

When comparing the school students and the college students groups, we observe a growth of the significance of the traits and personal characteristics factor: the third place among high school students and the second among college students. We believe that this is natural because the process of growing up is accompanied with a change in value and purpose reference points. Undoubtedly, within the life contexts of both groups, learning activities are important, but for the students who have already positively solved the problem of entering a higher education institution, such needs as the need for independence and self-knowledge, the need to analyse the reasons behind their own behaviour and that of other people are actualised (Kornilova & Grigorenko, 1995). Studies made on a sample of students have shown a striving for personality growth and an aspiration to serve society (Chirkov & Deci, 1999). It is quite probable that it is by these reasons that learning problems faced by many first-year students can be explained. The content of their learning activities is unconnected with the problems of their personality development; they do not yet see themselves as professionals, which results in a loss of internal motivation to learn and, for this reason, the learning process itself loses its meaning for them.

The relationship factor, which occupies the first place for high school students, is also confirmed for students by a whole number of studies (Prihozhan & Tolstikh, 1990, 2007; Yartsev, 1999) that record the importance of the family situation and parent–child relationship. Students consider ‘good relations with their parents’ as one of the most important values (Sobkin et al., 2005). It is general knowledge that relations with peers are of great importance for adolescents. In this respect, the group of orphanage inmates is of interest – the high figures in the relationship factor, first of all, family relationship, may be regarded as a defence reaction which is a way of coping with the situation. By idealising his/her family, an adolescent repudiates himself/herself. Another possible way is to recognise the family's guilt which results in discrimination of the family and positive past experience. Both positions – self-repudiation or repudiation – of the family are psychologically justified but do not facilitate successful adaptation to a new situation, establishment of new ties or maintaining an emotional connexion with the parents (Gulina, 2002). Thus, although this factor is the first for orphaned adolescents, it does not reflect a life resource for these young people. And so, not having the skills of social behaviour that are necessary for successful adaptation in society, orphans are forced to focus on near their environment, i.e. peers, showing pattern of behaviour accepted in their environment. Social environment outside of the orphans' group does not offer them a way to interact with it, and, as one of the most stigmatised groups in Russian society, the orphans cannot build a relationship of social partnership outside of boarding schools. For obvious reasons, the role of ‘significant others’ (neighbours, classmates, teachers, patrons) in the life of orphans increases markedly.

High figures in the relationship factor for EBD adolescents – which holds the second place in the distribution structure – undoubtedly reflects the significance of relationships for the adolescents of this group: one of the most important values for them is ‘spiritual and physical intimacy with the person you love’. It is in the light of the social relationships that the adolescents of this group view the negative aspects of school (Sobkin et al., 2005). The very protest behaviour with which they react to the requirements of grown-ups confirms the importance of this relationship for them, relationship in which they cannot satisfy one of the essential needs of the person – the need for respect and acceptance. (Baranov, 1997). Family relationship, as it has been mentioned already, is not a resource for these adolescents. It is rather their relationship with peers that can serve as a resource for them.

The culture factor: in all the groups (high school students, EBD adolescents and orphans), except for college students, the same phenomenon is observed – adolescents who positively accept their country and culture do not tend to support the skinhead movement and are not inclined to have relationships with those who abuse alcohol. Probably, feeling part of a big group (country) and acceptance of traditions and culture is a factor that enhances the resilience of adolescents because the decrease of the regulating power of traditions can result in weaker adaptation mechanisms (Nalchajyan, 2001).

In its turn, it is interesting to note the distribution of the questions in the culture factor. In the EBD adolescents group, this factor included the question ‘Does everything in your life depend on you?’, while in the college students group ‘Are you certain about your future profession?’, i.e. in these two groups, we see a clear mutual influence of the culture and traits and personal characteristics factors. But while in EBD adolescents, we see a direct dependence – the less they like the country and the culture, the less they are sure of themselves – in psychology students, we see an inverse dependence – non-acceptance of the country and culture enhances the importance of the personality factor (being certain of their future profession).

In the group of high school students, this factor includes the questions connected with the relationship with the family. This shows that, despite the fact that culture occupies the second place for them, it is more a case of perceiving the country and the culture through the prism of the family, i.e. they feel being part of the family as a small group rather than being part of the country as EBD adolescents feel.

The community factor: we see that this factor occupies one of the last places in the factor distribution in all the four groups. The college students have the lowest average figure among all the groups in their answers to the question ‘Do you feel safe in your country?’. This confirms that the lower is the role of acceptance of his/her culture (traditions) in an adolescent's life, the lower is his/her feeling of safety. It is interesting to compare EBD adolescents with orphanage infants on the basis of this factor. The following difference is noted: while orphaned adolescents, who do not feel needed by their families and peers and understand that their economic status and social background influence their peers' attitude towards them, begin to rely, first of all, on the State, which is responsible for them, EBD adolescents prefer to rely on themselves. It can be a probable explanation of the so-called asocial behaviour of EBD adolescents and of the low adaptation of orphans upon leaving orphanages when they begin their own lives (when the State ceases to assume full responsibility for the organisation of their lives and shifts part of the responsibility on them).

As regards the high school students group, for them, this factor occupies the last – fourth – place, which shows that the community does not play a serious role in their resilience system. They mostly rely on the relationship system and, first of all, on their families. It is important to note that the higher the feeling of safety in this group of adolescents, the less the probability of their abusing alcohol or drugs or of their support for the skinhead movement. It can be supposed that a blurred social self-identification and negative emotions connected with it are factors which encourage the adolescent to behave in deviant way (Sobkin et al., 2005).

Conclusions

• The resilience system of Russian adolescents is weakly supported by social resources. This is especially true of the community's role in the life of adolescents.

• The role of culture and traditions in the life of the groups of adolescents under research is, undoubtedly, significant, for we see that a decrease in the figures of this factor (the fourth place for EBD adolescents and college students) resultsin a lower feeling of safety in adolescents, on the one hand, and in deviations, on the other.

• Relationship (the family, peers) is the most important resource for Russian adolescents. Subjectively, they identify this factor as the main resource even when this is not true, as in the groups of orphans and EBD adolescents. The absence of this resource results in greater behaviour deviations and lower social adaptability.

• Personality traits as a resilience resource are little used in almost all groups (except for college students). EBD adolescents, for whom they are the key resource, rely, first of all, on themselves because they make limited use of the other resources.

• The study has confirmed the structure of the resilience phenomenon; the four factors (community, culture, relationship and personal traits) were identified both in the Russian sample and in the other studies, which confirms the universality of this situation regardless of cultural, social and economic factors of the country in which adolescents live.

• For the group of orphans, relationships are the most important resource. Subjectively, they point out this factor as the main resource, even if it does not correspond to objective reality. The absence of relationship leads to a decrease in social adaptability. Staying within their own subculture is the condition of the formation of traditions and culture in general, but by the impact of the ‘significant others’. At their age, subculture is crucial for orphaned adolescents and for increasing their resilience. Personal characteristics is not a resource of orphans' resilience, but with the positive influence of ‘significant others’ may be of great importance.

Acknowledgement

The author would like ot thank Dr Anna I. Laktionova from the Institute of Psychology Russian Academy of Sciences for her help in gathering data research.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alexander V. Makhnach

Alexander V. Makhnach is a senior researcher at the Institute of Psychology Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. In 1994–1995, he worked on the development of the International program: The Challenge of Foster Care under the auspice of the Russian Ministry of Education that designed a system of foster families in Russia. From 1993 until the present he is working as a rector at the NGO Institute of Psychology and Psychotherapy, Moscow. In 2000–2005, he has been on the board of experts and then as deputy director for methodology at the ‘Assistance to Russian Orphans’ Program.

Notes

^1. The main part of the CYRM (Section 3 in Test Manual) is an international part of the test. International research data in authors' publications are at http://resilienceresearch.org/research-and-evaluation/publications

^2. Students also fulfilled the principal part of the CYRM. These data gatherings from that part of CYRM are not analysed in this paper.