The Neighborhoods They Live in: The Effects of Neighborhood Residence on Child and Adolescent Outcomes.Tama Leventhal and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn

Overview of the articleThe article provides a comprehensive review of research on the effects of neighborhood residence on child and adolescent well-being.  Section I – Key methodological issuesSection II – Considers the link between neighborhood characteristics and child outcomes. (Suggesting the importance of high socioeconomic status (SES) for achievement and low SES and residential instability for poor behavioral/emotional outcomes)Section III – Identifies pathways (institutional resources, relationships, and norms/collective efficacy) through which neighborhood might influence development.

Collectively – Neighborhood effect (specifically the effects of residence in a poor neighborhood on children and youth)

Overview:Research:Social Disorganization Theory

1970’s and 80’s Increasingly concentrated poverty in urban areas reoriented the discussion of poverty from the individual to the neighborhood level.

1.Social Disorganization Theory- an explanatory model for delinquency and crime, as well as other problem behaviors encounter in many poor urban neighborhoods.

The Theory-neighborhood structural factors, such as poverty, residential instability, single parenthood, and ethnic heterogeneity, are of prime importance in explaining behavior through their ability to thwart or promote neighborhood organization (formal or informal), which maintains public order.

Overview:Research:Residential Patterns

2. Residential (or spatial) patters as sources of concentrated neighborhood poverty.  Housing policies as a contributor to concentrated poverty, as well as racial segregation. 

Segregation of public housing in poor neighborhoods led to isolated areas of concentrated poverty in in the cities and, at the same time, to growing areas of concentrated affluence, predominately outside the cities. (because high concentrations of minorities reside in poor urban neighborhoods, such policies have prompted racial and ethnic segregation of neighborhoods)

Overview:Research:Neighbohood Effect

3. More recent development in neighborhood research was the publication of the now-classic review of neighborhood effects by Jencks and Mayer (1990), in which they identified five theoretical frameworks for linking individual behavior with neighborhood effects.

I. Neighborhood institutional resource models (resources and services)II. Collective socialization model (role models, supervision and monitoring)III. Contagion (or epidemic) models (negative behavior of neighborhoods and peers) IV. Models of competition (compete for scarce community resources)V. Relative deprivation model (evaluation of the own situation relative to neighbors of peers)

Overview:Research:Neighbohood Effect:Five Frameworks

I. Neighborhood institutional resource modelsNeighborhood resources may affect children through police presence

and access to resources that provide stimulating learning and social environments, parks, libraries, and community centers, as well as community services that promote healthy development.

II. Collective socialization modelNeighborhood influences affect children by means of community

socialization, including the presence of adult role models, supervision and monitoring, in addition to structure and routines

III. Contagion (or epidemic) modelsFocuses on problem behavior- negative behavior of neighborhoods

and peers strongly influences or spreads to the behavior of others.

IV. Models of competition Neighborhoods or peers compete for scarce community resources.

V. Relative deprivation modelNeighborhood conditions affect individuals by means of their evaluation

of the own situation relative to neighbors of peers.  

Collectively these 5 models have guided theoretical discussions of neighborhood influence on children and youth.

Overview:Research:Neighbohood Effect:Five Frameworks

Overview:Research:Bronfenbrenner4. Bronfenbrenner- emphasizes viewing lives in context and the need for researchers to examine the multiple contexts that influence children and families, as well as relations among these contexts. (bidirectional effects and person-context interactions.

 

Not only do contexts influence individuals but also individual characteristics influence or often form the contexts in which individual interact. CONVERGENCE of these multiple strands of research have led to an explosion of neighborhood influences on children and youth.

The Article addresses three important questions about neighborhood effects on children and youth.  Part I: How are neighborhoods studied?

Part 2: Do neighborhoods matter for children and youth?

Part 3: How do neighborhoods influence children and youth?

Part I (How are they studied?)Key methodological issues are reviewed, including study designs, strategies for defining neighborhoods, and identification of neighborhood dimensions. a.National or Multisite Large StudiesTypically include a large range of socioeconomic statuses (SES) and incomes across families and neighborhoods and permit estimation of neighborhood effects on the basis of a few individual families per neighborhood.

b.City or Regional StudiesUsing data from regional studies focuses on neighborhood effects within a city or metropolitan area. In some cases, a wide range of neighborhood types is included, and in others, the range is somewhat truncated (i.e. focusing on primarily poor neighborhoods)

d. Experimental or quasi-experimental-based designsRandomly assigning families to reside in particular types of neighborhoods. Housing policies, afford researchers the opportunity to examine how a change in neighborhood, such as families living in public housing in poor neighborhoods, to housing in other neighborhoods, usually less poor ones.

c. Neighborhood-based designs Unlike the first two approaches, this strategy focuses on neighborhoods in the initial design. The sampling is conducted to ensure that certain types of neighborhoods are included, as well as a range of neighborhoods that are representative of some target population of neighborhoods. The sampling is also designed to have a certain number of individuals per neighborhood unit to conduct hierarchical analyses.

Part I (How are they studied?)

ExampleMoving to opportunity (MOP), randomly assigned housing project residents- low-income, predominately minority families with children- to one of three conditions. (a) an experimental or treatment group that received Section 8 housing vouchers and special assistance to move, with the requirement that the move be to a low-poverty neighborhood defined as a neighborhood in which 10% or less of the residents were poor as measured by the 1990 Census (referred to as the experimental group because the members moved to affluent neighborhoods); (b) a control group that received Section 8 housing vouchers but no special assistance and no stipulation as to where to move (referred to as the Section 8 comparison group because the members moved but not necessarily to affluent neighborhoods)(c) a second control group that did not receive vouchers or special assistance and thus remained in public housing 

Part II (Do they matter?)Do neighborhoods matter for children?The domains of well-being that have been used to examine whether neighborhoods matter for children and youth include: I. School readiness and achievement II. Behavioral and emotional problemsIII. Sexuality and childbearing Analysis of three dimensions have been used to examine these domains:

Income or SES- Income, percentage of professionals in neighborhood, percent of residents with high school or college degree, percentage of female headship of families, percentage of employed/unemployed individuals.Racial/Ethnic diversity- Percentage of African American, Latino, foreign-born residentsIII. Residential instability- Residents who have moved within the past 5 years, the proportion of households who have lived in their current home for less than 10years, and the proportion of owner-occupied houses.

School Readiness and Achievement High-SES neighbors had a positive effect on school readiness and achievement outcomes.  Studies: High-SES was positively associated with children’s IQ scores High-SES was positively associated with youths’ chances of completing high school, attending college, and years of schooling completed In Chicago, MOP, youth who moved to the more affluent suburbs were more likely to stay in school, in in college preparatory classes, and go on to college than their peers who remained in the city.  

Part II (Do they matter?):School Readiness and Achivement

Part II (Do they matter?):Behavioral and Emotional Problems Behavioral and Emotional ProblemsThese findings are less consistent than those reported for cognitive and school outcomes. Residing in low-SES neighborhoods was positively associated with delinquent and criminal behavior, including the severity and frequency of delinquency.   Studies:Neighborhood residential instability has been linked to substance abuse problems in older children. One study found that schools located in neighborhoods with low residential instability were more likely to have higher rates of lifetime alcohol use than schools in more disadvantaged neighborhoods.  (MOP) Boys who moved to love-poverty neighborhoods were less likely to be arrested for violent crimes, (assaults, robbery, rape, and other sex crimes) than were peers who stayed in public housing in poor neighborhoods or their peers who moved out of public housing, but moved to predominantly low-to-middle-income neighborhoods.

Part II (Do they matter?):Sexuality and Child Bearning Sexuality and Child BearingConsistent pattern of results is the association between neighborhood SES, as assessed by employment indicators, and coital and fertility outcomes.  Studies: The presence of few professional or managerial workers in the neighborhood, were associated with an increased risk of adolescent and nonmarital childbearing.  The presence of neighborhood economic and social resources, on the other hand, is associated with decreased nonmarital child bearing. Rates of neighborhood poverty were positively associated with frequency of intercourse and having impregnated someone and negatively associated with effective contraceptive use.

How Do Neighborhoods Influence Children and Youth?  Examines the ways in which neighborhood effect operates to influence development. I. Neighborhood institutional resource models (resources and services)II. Collective socialization model (role models, supervision and monitoring)III. Contagion (or epidemic) models (negative behavior of neighborhoods and peers) IV. Models of competition (compete for scarce community resources)V. Relative deprivation model (evaluation of the own situation relative to neighbors of peers)

Part III (Do they influence?)

Overview of the potential mechanisms through which neighborhoods may influence children and youth: I.Institutional resources

II. Relationships

III. Norms/Collective efficacy 

Part III (Do they influence?):Institutional resources Institutional Resources

 The availability, accessibility, affordability, and quality of learning, social and recreational activities, childcare, schools, medical facilities, and employment opportunities present in the community.  Studies: The presence in the community of learning activities, such as libraries, family resource centers, literacy programs, and museums, that parents can draw on for their children’s learning stimulation may influence children’s development. (School readiness and academic outcomes) Childcare available in the community:High quality childcare associated programs have been shown to have long-term positive effects on children’s cognitive and socioemotional outcomes. Lower quality is associated with lower adult-to-child ratios that have lead to less supervision, increased tolerance of aggressive behavior, and potential child injuries.

Part III (Do they influence?):Relationships Relationships Parental characteristics (mental health, irritability, coping skills, efficacy, and physical health), support networks available to parents, parental behavior (responsibility/warmth, harshness/control, and supervision/monitoring), an the quality and structure of home environment.

Living in neighborhoods with a high proportion of poor residents was associated with lower maternal warmth than residing in neighborhoods with a high proportion of middle-income residents.

Part to parental behavior: children's exposure to violence in the home as either a witness or a victim also may mediate neighborhood effects on children and youth, particularly mental and physical health. A study of a poor urban community found that children were exposed to high levels of violence within both the community and the home

Part III (Do they influence?):Norms/Collective Efficacy Norms/Collective Efficacy

The extent to which community level formal and informal institutions exist to supervise and monitor the behavior or residents, particularly youths’ activities (deviant and antisocial behavior) and the presence of physical risk (violence and victimization and harmful substances) to residents, especially children and youth.

low-SES children and children from single-parent families were most likely to be exposed to aggressive peers in the neighborhood. Such play may be more permissible when it is unstructured and unsupervised.

Yonkers Project who moved to middle-income neighborhoods, it was youth with high levels of problem behavior that maintained strong ties with peers in the old, low-income neighborhoods