Chandrasekaran Prasanth and Narayanan Annalakshmi
Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, India
Pages: 94 – 101
Objective: To promote emotion regulation and resilience among at-risk adolescents,
various interventions have been attempted and reported. However, most interventions
heavily lean on Western models that have questionable relevance in the Indian
culture. The objective of the present study was to develop and evaluate an intervention
to enhance emotion regulation and resilience based on Thirukkural, classic Tamil
literature. Thirukkural provides a unique perspective that has the potential to nurture
emotion regulation and resilience. Method: We examined the efficacy of the Thirukkural
intervention program in enhancing emotion regulation and resilience using a purposive
sample of 114 at-risk adolescents in the age group 11-16 years studying in two different
rural schools. The schools were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions:
Thirukkural intervention and a Control condition. The participants in the Experimental
condition were delivered the intervention in 12 sessions. The Experimental group
participants (N = 58) and Control Group participants (N = 56) were assessed at threetime points, i.e., pre, post, and follow-up using self-report measures of emotion regulation
and resilience. Results: The result shows that the Thirukkural intervention effected a
significantly greater improvement in emotion regulation and resilience of the participants
as compared to the Control Group. This study demonstrates that affirmative actions
for at-risk adolescents must include culturally embedded interventions. Implications of
the findings for policy, practice, and research on the usefulness of Thirukkural based
intervention are discussed. .
Keywords: Thirukkural, emotion regulation, resilience, culturally embedded, indigenous
intervention, at-risk adolescents