|
ITROW Research Projects - Neighborhoods and Gendered Child
Development
Theories of Neighborhood Effects
As Jencks and Mayer
(1990) comment in their comprehensive review of neighborhood
effects, most Americans assume that children who grow up in a “good”
community are more likely than those who grow up in a “bad”
community to work hard in school, stay out of trouble, go to
college, and get a good job when they become adults. However,
whether there are any important community effects on child
development, independent of the characteristics of families who live
in the communities, is an issue that has not been completely
resolved. Some argue, for example, that it is not the poverty of
neighborhoods that is detrimental to child development, but the
poverty of families that live in poor neighborhoods. An alternative
hypothesis is that both the poverty of neighborhoods and the poverty
of families are detrimental.
Researchers
examining neighborhood effects have not always agreed upon the best
definition and measures of neighborhood characteristics. Some take
an empirically-based approach in which numerous measures are
submitted to factor analysis, which leads to the creation of
composite scores based on somewhat disparate variables such as
housing quality and density, unemployment, family structure,
affluence, racial composition, population change, and other measures
readily available through census data (Duncan and Aber 1997;
Aneshensel and Sucoff 1996; Geis and Ross 1997).
We by contrast are
interested in specifying more clearly the paths among some of these
variables, investigating the presumed causal chain ensuing from
employment opportunities, which we hypothesize affect income levels
in communities, crime and violence, family poverty, and parenting.
Because our focus is on the ramifications of the organization of
work on families, subsistence activities, and children, we want to
approach the analysis of neighborhood effects by starting with a
focus on employment
opportunity. In the broadest sense, our first aim is to see how
and when the characteristics of communities influence child
development, either directly or indirectly. Thus, it is quite
appropriate to conduct neighborhood research that does not merge
neighborhood variables together into one index, but that rather
explicitly looks at the impact of economic forces per se on other
indices of urban life and upon urban families and children.
Sociological thought about the impact of
neighborhoods has a long tradition, and was a major focus of research in
the first half of this century. Key figures of the Chicago School were
Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess, who assumed that competition
determines the territorial distribution of populations, for example.
The ecological approach to the study of social processes fell out of
favor during the 1970s, but has recently been revived as new tools for
handling problems of contextual analysis have emerged. Recently,
effects of neighborhoods have been found to exist for urban crime and
deviant behavior, voting behavior, morale of the elderly, mental health,
teenage pregnancy, dropping out of school, and employment (Allan and
Steffensmeier 1989; Anderson 1991; Crane 1991; Bohland and Herbert 1983;
Brewster 1994; Ensminger, Lambkin, and Jacobson, 1995; Herbert 1976;
Johnston 1976; Keith 1990; Rosenbaum and Popkin 1991; Smith 1980).
Structural
Characteristics of Neighborhoods
Aber et al.
posit a model of neighborhood effects wherein structural and
compositional characteristics of neighborhoods (influenced by
globalization, economic restructuring, migration, and public policies)
affect both neighborhood social organization (social networks,
collective supervision of youth) and cultural processes (clarity and
consensus about norms and values), the latter two of which influence
each other. This perspective is indebted, they note, to several other
recent theories of neighborhood effects, most notably social
disorganization theory (Sampson 1992), social capital theory (Coleman
1988, 1990), and the developmental-ecological perspective (Bronfenbrenner
1979b, 1986). Structural theory states that the institutions and social
and economic patterns affecting and inherent in neighborhood life and
conditions influence male and female child outcomes by creating
opportunities, setting limits, and encouraging behavior through
example. Structural theory focuses on sociological and economic
patterns external to the individual or to the family. As applied to our
set of research questions, structural theory would imply not only that
institutions and socio-economic patterns affect child development
directly but also that they affect relationships and processes within
the family.
The first major concept
identified by Aber et al. (1997)
¾ structural
and compositional characteristics of neighborhoods
¾
itself is related to three research foci in previous research:
-
the
macrostructural constraints imposed by joblessness and the
behavior of other jobless families in the neighborhood as an
influence on children. Wilson (1987, 1991) suggested that job loss
and the middle-class flight to the suburbs has led to male
joblessness, the concentration of poverty, and female-headed
households. He argues that job loss is a basic cause of these
changes.
-
The influence of
the presence or absence of middle-class or high-status
professionals on children (Brooks-Gunn et al. 1993; Crane
1991; Ensminger, Lamkin, and Jacobson 1995).
-
The
concentration of poor, minority, female-headed families (Hogan
and Kitigawa 1985).
Brewster, Billy, and
Grady (1993:715) suggest that community characteristics define
behavioral alternatives and their associated social, psychic, and
economic costs, thereby shaping the individual perceptions, attitudes,
and values that guide young people’s behaviors. They maintain that
there are two basic ways in which community characteristics can do this:
(1) communities may contain a local opportunity structure that channels
and constrains adolescent behaviors; or (2) communities may engender a
prevailing normative climate delimiting the boundaries of acceptable and
desirable behaviors for young people. Similarly, Garner and Raudenbush
(1991) conceive of three ways in which neighborhoods could have impacts:
(a) by predisposing individuals to respond differently to social
institutions, (b) by facilitating or constraining interactions among
individuals, or (c) by creating environments which affect individuals.
Social Capital
Theory and Social Networks
There are three forms
of “capital” which are pertinent to the topic:
The economists Schultz
(1961) and Becker (1964) proposed that just as physical capital is
embodied in tools, machines, and other productive equipment, there
exists human capital as well, which consists of characteristics
and skills possessed by individuals that increase their productivity.
In education research, the term often refers to central resources within
the family that are thought to be necessary for a child’s successful
development. In research practice, human capital is usually
operationalized by measures of education and income (Teachman, Paasch,
and Carver 1997).
Seeking to remedy what
he saw as an over-emphasis of the concept of human capital on rational
behavior and isolated individuals, Coleman (1988) proposed the concept
of social capital to point to the relationships among people and
within communities that constitute resources which can be drawn on or
accessed as needed. Social capital is “the aggregation of knowledge and
information stemming from sources other than formal education and
training” (Coleman 1990:304). It resides in the relations between the
members of a group, not in the individuals that comprise it. Coleman
suggested that social capital exists both within and outside the
family. Within the family, it is represented by the amount of positive
parent-child interaction. Outside the family, it is represented by the
density of social interactions among parents in different families and
among parents and institutions in the community, particularly schools.
Coleman further suggested that social capital sets the context within
which the financial and human resources of parents may affect their
children’s development. Thus, social capital may mediate the impact of
financial and human capital on the schooling of children (Teachman et
al. 1997).
Finally, to capture the
structural characteristics of neighborhoods proposed by Aber et al.
(1997), we use the phrase community capital to refer to those
resources and characteristics of communities that affect the
productivity of families and children within them. These we have
already discussed above as “structural characteristics of
neighborhoods.” Employment patterns, general economic health of the
community, the presence of community role models, and neighborhood
safety are examples of characteristics or resources that could impact on
child development.
Social
Disorganization Theory - Under Development
Developmental-Ecological Perspective - Under Development
How Does Community Affect Children? A
Life Course Social Field Theory
A useful
conceptualization of child development comes from life course/social
field theory (Kellam et al. 1975; Kellam and Ensminger 1980;
Kellam et al. 1994; Kellam et al. 1998). The main tenets
of this theory are that at each stage of life, an individual is involved
in a few major social fields that constitute both present context and
set the stage for future development. As children, individuals
typically are first involved in their family, then in the school and
their peer group. The social fields involved in later developmental
stages often shift to the workplace and its peer relations, the family
of procreation with spouse and children, and still later, their
children’s families. Thus, there is an intimate relationship between
life stages and key social fields.
Each of these social
fields sets specific social task demands. Natural raters, such as
parents, the teacher, and the significant peers in each context judge
how well a child performs in meeting those demands. These task demands
may overlap considerably, but they are not necessarily identical and may
even be in conflict.
The community context
provides another arena of definition of social fields and provision of
natural raters. Its social field demands may differ from the demands
set forth in other social field areas. For example, the presence of a
strong network of illegal employment, such as drug trafficking, may
encourage an aggressive and tough persona and behavior toward others,
which when transferred to the classroom is not admired by teachers.
Children and adolescents may aspire to integration within neighborhood
gangs, and desire the status, prestige, and security that accompany a
successful career in the illegal drug economy (Bourgois 1995).
However, codes of behavior in that field may directly conflict with the
codes of behavior (docility, cooperativeness) held by the natural raters
in the school social field, the teachers.
In cases of conflict
with the social task demands of other social fields, the child’s
conformance to one set rather than another may permanently affect his or
her development throughout the school career. In this way, the
community’s social organization, cultural processes, and local
opportunity structures may affect the direction and intensity of the
child’s skill acquisition and emotional health.
|
 |
|
