I’m still figuring out exactly what my area of study is going to be. When I was applying for the program, I was thinking about trauma, and especially how we respond to trauma. My current line of thinking is similar, but with a bit of twist. If I was to describe my current line of thinking, it would be around resiliency, and how it is developed. I’m particularly interested in that resiliency in individuals, groups, organizations, and communities. Tentatively, for my dissertation, I’m considering how do we assess resiliency factors (with the goal to improve that resiliency) for individuals, groups, organizations, and potentially communities.

All of that being said, under the domain of resiliency, there are many different areas of study that it can fall under, which I would argue makes it a good place to apply a transdisciplinary framework to address. In thinking about these topics, some of the areas of research might include the following:

For looking at the individual and addressing their needs, there is a need to understand the traumatic experiences and their underlying needs. Journals such as PubMed Central’s Archives of Trauma Research, or Springer LINK’s Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma, and PsycARTICLES Psychological Trauma.

Because I’m interested in this concept of resilience in organizations, and especially in the school-based setting (as this is where I practice), the School Social Work Journal; Chicago especially due to my social work background, but also Educational Research for Policy and Practice by Springer LINK, or Sage Journals Review of Educational Research, and from a community perspective outside of K-12 education Springer LINK’s Community Mental Health Journal.

There is no specific journal on Resilience given on the CIIS Library website. It is a fairly new subject, and there are journals that are looking into this. For example, Taylor and Francis have a journal on Resilience: International Policies, Practices, and Discourses, and Springer has Journal that is starting in 2020, Adversity and Resilience Science: Journal of Research and Practice.

This essay was originally posted as a discussion for TSD 8125 Creative Inquiry - Scholarship for the 21st Century at the California Institute of Integral Studies.