The Academic Resilience in Single-Parent Families: Perspectives of Students in Secondary Schools

Background: Academic resilience has become an essential construct of studying how adolescents can attain positive educational performance despite their exposure to contextual risk factors. Single-parent students may experience structural factors, including economic and social levels like parental control and less parental control, as well as psychosocial stressors; however, the resilience theory posits that the adverse outcome may be countered by adaptive protective systems. Purpose: The research mostly sought to investigate academic resilience in students in secondary school, with special focus on how family structure is affected by academic achievement and how resilience mediates in predicting social well-being. The paper also examined the protective role of parental support, academic self-efficacy, and school connectedness. Methodology: The study design was a cross-sectional quantitative design using a stratified random sample of 400 students in Classes IX and X concerning major academic achievement indicators such as academic resilience, parental support, self-efficacy, school connectedness, and social well-being. The measures of academic resilience, parental support, self-efficacy, school connectedness, and social well-being were measured using standardized and validated instruments. Descriptive analysis, correlation, multiple regression, mediation analysis (PROCESS macro), analysis Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) were used to analyse data. Significant Results: Results revealed that the full effect of family structure on academic achievements and social well-being was mild. School connectedness, academic self-efficacy and parental support all added to the academic resilience when academic self-efficacy was involved. Mediation analysis showed that academic resilience interposed the relationship between family structure and social well-being to a certain extent. The structural disadvantage linked to single-parented family was significantly reduced in the light of protective psychosocial factors. Findings: The results have been attained in favour of the strengths-based, resilience-focused view of adolescent development. Educational programs must focus on the development of self-efficacy, supportive school environments and emotionally responsive parenting patterns to consolidate adaptive school performance.