"This thesis examines factors that promoted resilience in Aboriginal people who attended residential schools. The research identifies, from the participants' accounts the factors that helped them to endure the experience and compares risk and protective factors described in the life stories to the factors identified in existing literature. The research is qualitative, based in grounded theory using the oral history method for gathering the data. The findings are intended to expand the knowledge base of resilience research. A small sample of four women and two men who attended residential school between 1939 and 1966 were interviewed. . . . All the participants are members of First Nations from Alberta or Saskatchewan and five of the six attended residential school for a minimum of seven years"--summary.