Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Native American Youth Perspectives On Resilience, Heather Babula, Shelly Belgarde, Suzanne Cecere, Kirsten Albrecht Riehle

Master of Arts in Holistic Health Studies Research Papers

Few existing studies examine resilience in youth by exploring the perspectives of the youth themselves. Research suggests that resilience is culturally contextual and that it is essential to include youth viewpoints when constructing an understanding of resilience. Native American youth are underrepresented in youth resilience studies. For this study, we use an arts informed method to explore resilience among Native American youth. An arts informed method provides for gathering of subjective, intuitive participant perceptions, which aligns with our phenomenological and Indigenous research cultures of inquiry. Participants took photos of that which they perceived to give them strength (“resilience” code-switched for …