Socioeconomic Background and Self-Efficacy as Predictors of Emotional Resilience among In-School Adolescents in Abeokuta, Nigeria

The concept of adolescence is often based on the idea that it is a stormy period of development, where the person goes through maturation, identity-making, and increased vulnerability to the judgment of others. The adolescents in schools are simultaneously faced with a convergence of demands that are caused by the school environment, including academic, peer, and family-related demands, which can act as triggers of stress and psychological distress. Resiliency in such environment has been shown to alleviate susceptibility to depression, anxiety as well as suicidal behaviours. Modern systematic reviews highlight the universal predictive role of academic overload on mental health problems in adolescents, establishing the necessity of a framework that will improve resistance (Wu et al., 2023; Li et al., 2024). In addition to its protective effect, there is a binding developmental process to foster resiliency in adolescents to help them stay motivated despite challenges, get back on track after a failure, and make a psychological balance in a straining learning environment (Zhang et al., 2023). School is a social environment that is central in stimulating or inhibiting the process of developing resilience among adolescents. Peers, teachers, and a positive school milieu support are simultaneously linked with greater resilience levels and adaptive outcomes (Arias et al., 2024). Findings revealed a negative effect of peer support on maladjustment and indirect positive effect of family and teacher support on resilience and self-perceptions (Garcia-Moya et al., 2024). Another study in India are repeatedly performed to point out that favourable school climates reduce psychological distresses and augment educational performance at the secondary level (Patel et al., 2024). On the other hand, negative experiences like peers neglect, teacher neglect and academic overload have adverse effects on the resilience of the adolescents to adapt to school conditions in institutions (Salavera et al., 2023).

The adolescent populations in the Nigerian context are unique in terms of the influence of certain cultural

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