Narrating trajectories in vulnerability: student resilience and ecologies of support in El Salvador

This article analyzes how university students in El Salvador who face conditions of vulnerability narrate and reframe their educational trajectories, as well as the forms of agency they deploy in response to institutional gaps. The study was conducted at Universidad Pedagógica de El Salvador during the first academic term of 2025, following a qualitative approach with a narrative design. The corpus consisted of thirteen student essays based on twenty-seven peer interviews across eleven diverse subpopulations (working students, parents, non-resident students, athletes, artists, student representatives, feminists, religious students, entrepreneurs, students with disabilities, and those changing majors). The analysis followed a mixed categorical–thematic strategy combining inductive and deductive coding, theoretical triangulation, and reflexive journaling. Findings reveal six core dimensions: invisible double workload, affective scaffolding, institutional gaps, ethics of care, resilience, and psycho-affective costs. The study concludes that student persistence relies on relational ecologies of support that only partially offset structural tensions, and that resilience should be understood as a social praxis rather than an individual trait. The research provides situated qualitative evidence on student trajectories and suggests implications for university management, especially in inclusive policies, flexible schedules, and comprehensive wellbeing support.