Capítulo XII. Building Resilience Through Soft Skills a socio-educational approach

• Author: Inmaculada Navarro-González y Elisa Gavari-Starkie
• Profession: UNED, España
• Pages: 179-194

CAPÍTULO XII

BUILDING RESILIENCE THROUGH SOFT SKILLS. A SOCIO

EDUCATIONAL APPROACH

Inmaculada Navarro-González y Elisa Gavari-Starkie

UNED, España

1. EDUCATION AS AN ELEMENT OF SOFT POWER

In 1990 Joseph Nye (Nye, 2004) coined the term so power in the context of the

end of the Cold War and linked it to the US foreign policy with the aim of improving

its reputation in the world. In fact the States have recognized it is importance to be

successful or increase a country status on the international chessboard.  is has

prompted governments to take measures to promote a friendlier image of their

country in order to be attractive to the citizens of the rest of the world. Gilboa

considers that public diplomacy is the instrument by which sources of so power

are used and employed to expand it (Gilboa, 2008). In fact Nye calls so power the

one based on cultural diplomacy (including education) that seeks to in uence other

countries through attraction and seduction. Brie y, in an interconnected media

world in which citizens participate, so power is a concept in full force and essential

in international positioning.

The needs of the 21st century, in the so-called risk society lead to the

reconsideration of a third way in education. In addition to hard and so power it

is necessary to develop the citizens strength through resilient skills. Today’s society

needs citizens who build resilience and who are able to emerge stronger from crises.

From this situation arises the need to develop and enhance in children competencies

such as resilience, critical thinking, re ective thinking and creative thinking. Beyond

its traditional individualistic conception as the person’s capacity to overcome

adversity, the most recent de nitions of the concept of resilience (Sandoval-Díaz,

2020) point to a process in which a multitude of personal, family, environmental

and social factors intervene, forming a systematic and holistic work capable of

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“generating learning of values and proposals, and optimising the educational service

we wish to o er” (Juárez Pérez-Cea et al., 2022, p.83). Community resilience is

conceived as the ability of social groups to resist and recover from unfavourable

circumstances and is o en associated with social relations and the activation of local

resources that enable communities to cope with, counteract and anticipate various

stressors (Sherried et al., 2010).

2. RESILIENCE IN THE EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK

Since 2009, in line with international guidelines, the European Union (EU)

has been considering the need to strengthen resilience. Initially, this capacity was

approached from the perspective of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) associated with

the sphere of developing countries (European Union, 2009). It was in 2012 that

references to resilience in the  eld of humanitarian development appeared in the

European Commission’s Communication ‘ e EU approach to resilience: learning

from food crises’ (European Union, 2012). Later, in the 2013 Council Conclusions,

resilience is de ned as “the capacity of an individual, household, community, country

or region to prepare for, cope with, adapt to and recover quickly from stresses and

shocks without jeopardising long-term development expectations”, which brings

together the individualistic and social perspectives outlined in the previous point.

Since 2015, the EU has incorporated the recommendations of the 2030 Agenda

(United Nation Foundation, n.d.) set out for the period 2015-2030 through

the document “A Common Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe. A

comprehensive strategy for the foreign and security policy of the European Union”

(European Union, 2016a). We would like to make special mention of this document

because it re ects the importance of civil society participation in achieving resilience.

 is document calls for the strengthening of social resilience through education,

culture and youth in order to promote pluralism, coexistence and respect. The

perspective of this approach delegates to citizens and communities the capacity

to manage opportunities and risks and places education as a key element for the

development of resilience.

Another prominent document on education for resilience building is the

European Capability Agenda (European Union, 2016b).  is document explicitly

refers to enhancing resilience through the acquisition of key competences that

develop higher and more complex competences and help people to increase their

potential at work and in society.  e Skills Agenda 2016 has recently been updated

with the New Skills Agenda, which is composed of 12 actions for sustainable

competitiveness, social equity and resilience (European Commission, 2020) and

which are related to training and re-training.  ese new actions revolve around the