A Theoretical Framework for Understanding Resilience Pathways in Nigerian Children Exposed to Multiple Adversities

This study develops and tests a contextually grounded theoretical framework for understanding resilience pathways in Nigerian children exposed to multiple concurrent adversities, drawing on data collected across three geopolitical zones: North East, South South, and South West. Existing resilience frameworks from Western developmental psychology inadequately account for the collective caregiving systems, spiritual resources, and ethnic identity buffers that characterise resilience processes in African child populations. This research employed a sequential mixed-methods design. Qualitative grounded theory interviews with 120 children, caregivers, teachers, and community leaders across Maiduguri, Yenagoa, and Ibadan identified indigenous resilience constructs. These informed a quantitative survey phase involving 820 adversity-exposed children aged 7 to 15 years, assessing proposed resilience indicators and outcomes using latent profile analysis and structural equation modelling. Results yielded four distinct resilience profiles: thriving, recovering, struggling, and resilient-at-cost. Collective family cohesion, spiritual meaning-making, and community elder mentorship emerged as culturally specific resilience mechanisms not captured in dominant Western frameworks. The proposed Nigerian Resilience Ecology Model situates child resilience within nested family, community, cultural, and policy systems. This original theoretical contribution challenges universalising assumptions in resilience theory and offers a developmentally sensitive, contextually valid framework for understanding and promoting resilience in Nigerian children. Keywords: resilience, multiple adversities, Nigerian children, theoretical framework, developmental psychology.