Social Sustainability of Post-Disaster: How Teachers Enable Primary School Students to Be Resilient in Times of Ranau Earthquake

Soon Singh Bikar, Balan Rathakrishnan, Mohammad Rahim Kamaluddin, Norruzeyati Che Mohd Nasir and Mohd Azrin Mohd Nasir
Additional contact information
Soon Singh Bikar: Faculty of Psychology and Education, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu 88400, Malaysia
Balan Rathakrishnan: Faculty of Psychology and Education, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu 88400, Malaysia
Mohammad Rahim Kamaluddin: Centre for Research in Psychology and Human Well-Being, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi 43600, Malaysia
Norruzeyati Che Mohd Nasir: School of Applied Psychology, Social Work & Policy, College of Art and Sciences, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Sintok 06010, Malaysia
Mohd Azrin Mohd Nasir: School of Applied Psychology, Social Work & Policy, College of Art and Sciences, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Sintok 06010, Malaysia

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 13, 1-11

Abstract: The Ranau Earthquake that struck on 5 June 2015, February 2018, and April 2021, were a new disaster in Sabah and caused many Sabahan to panic. The unpredicted disaster also caused a serious impact on all aspects of life in Sabah. The earthquake has caused severe damage to eight primary schools in the vicinity of the epicenter, although no casualties were reported. However, the disaster has deep passing psychological effects among students. In this study, we examine how the primary school teachers enabled the student to be resilient during and after the disaster. Based on the interviews with 16 primary school students, it was revealed that most of the teachers used WhatsApp to support resilience during and after the earthquake. Interviews with 16 primary school teachers revealed there were two main reasons for them to communicate with students, namely, delivering emotional aid and monitoring their stress. Based on student interviews, five content categories of emotional support were identified: caring, reassuring, emotion sharing, belonging, and distracting. The main contribution of this study is that social media can be used as a spontaneous and proactive tool for supporting the student’s resilience during and after the earthquake trauma.

Keywords: earthquake; resilience; WhatsApp; emotional support (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/13/7308/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/13/7308/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:13:p:7308-:d:585300

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().