Resiliency, Identity, and Competence

This entry explores the relationships among critical areas of development particularly salient during adolescence: competence, resiliency, and identity. The task is approached and framed from an identity-focused cultural ecological perspective, which highlights a context-focused human development experience. Margaret Beale Spencer's fundamental view is that like marrow is to bone, culture expresses itself as the essence or soul of human experience. Human experience cannot exist without the forming of culture or be evident without culture serving as the critical lens or manifestation through which human experience operates. For multiple reasons, the core expression of [Page 1848]culture is most clearly evident during adolescence, given youths' significantly broadened navigation of frequently under-supervised spaces. Accordingly, while focusing on youths' experiences, the concepts are discussed and integrated by employing the ...