"Making it": The components and process of resilience among urban, African-American, single mothers

In contrast to the bulk of research on urban single mothers that focuses on risk and negative outcomes, this qualitative study of ten resilient mother s living in risky neighborhoods uses the,women's own words to conceptualize resilience as an ongoing process of balancing risk and protective factors in eight domains. The findings question current assumptions about the unive rsality of risk and protective factors, and point to new directions for pro gram and policy.