Ordinary Magic

From a pioneering researcher, this book synthesizes the best current knowledge on resilience in children and adolescents. Ann S. Masten explores what allows certain individuals to thrive and adapt despite adverse circumstances, such as poverty, chronic family problems, or exposure to trauma. Coverage encompasses the neurobiology of resilience as well as the role of major contexts of development: families, schools, and culture. Identifying key protective factors in early childhood and beyond, Masten provides a cogent framework for designing programs to promote resilience. Complex concepts are carefully defined and illustrated with real-world examples.

Ann S. Masten, PhD, is the Irving B. Harris Professor of Child Development and Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota. With over 150 publications, Dr. Masten is an internationally known expert on resilience in human development. She serves as a member of the Board on Children, Youth, and Families of the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council of the National Academies and is past president of the Society for Research in Child Development. A Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA) and of the Association for Psychological Science, she is a recipient of the Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contributions to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society from the APA.

"A truly magnificent book that is very readable, highly informative, and hugely helpful for both understanding resilience and planning how best to foster it. Given that resilience is not a unitary trait, it presents quite a challenge to distill the key points from a complicated literature into straightforward messages, but that is exactly what this book does. It skillfully summarizes the main findings from both qualitative and quantitative research and combines all of that with telling case examples. Essential reading for any researcher or clinician interested in resilience." --Michael Rutter, MD, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, United Kingdom"I consider Masten to be the preeminent thinker on resilience/m-/and one of psychology's very best writers. Few authors possess the theoretical, empirical, clinical, and translational prevention skills to write such an integrative, well-presented volume. Masten makes a critical contribution to understanding the multiple pathways toward resilient outcomes f