Neighborhood Effects on Adolescent Development

该项目将研究社区特征对青少年完成学业和教育程度、性行为和非婚生育以及青少年犯罪和吸毒的影响。这一理论框架在威廉·J·威尔逊的著作《社区劣势对城市内部社会混乱的影响》中得到了很大的支持。主要的解释变量将包括青少年所在社区的社会经济和人口状况的指标，如贫困率、失业率、种族组成和配偶可获得性。将特别关注社区经济劣势与这些行为之间关系的功能形式；社区特征在不同社会经济、年龄和种族群体中的潜在差异影响；父母监督、教育和职业抱负以及同龄人群体规范等因素，这些因素可能会调节社区条件对青少年结果的影响；黑人和白人居住的社区的社会经济和人口构成的差异在多大程度上可以解释教育程度、婚前性活动和非婚生育能力方面的种族差异。对这个独特的、多层次的数据集的分析有望提炼社区如何影响生活事件和生活机会的理论模型，测试最近关于弱势群体越来越集中在下层地区的说法，并为解决这些问题的公共政策提供信息。

This project will examine the effects of neighborhood characteristics on adolescents' school completion and educational attainment, sexual activity and non-marital childbearing, and delinquency and drug use. The theoretical framework is grounded most heavily in William J. Wilson's treatise dealing with the impact of neighborhood disadvantage on inner-city social dislocations. The primary explanatory variables will include indicators of the socioeconomic and demographic status of the adolescent's neighborhood, such as the poverty rate, the unemployment rate, racial composition, and mate availability. Special attention will be given to the functional form of the relationship between neighborhood economic disadvantage and these behaviors; the potentially differential impact of neighborhood characteristics across different socioeconomic, age, and racial groups; factors such as parental supervision, educational and occupational aspirations, and peer group norms, that might mediate the effects of neighborhood conditions on adolescent outcomes; and the degree to which differences in the socioeconomic and demographic composition of the neighborhoods inhabited by blacks and whites can explain the often pronounced racial differences in educational attainment, premarital sexual activity, and non-marital fertility. The analysis of this unique, multi-level data set holds promise for refining theoretical models of how neighborhoods affect life events and life chances, for testing recent claims regarding the increasing concentration of disadvantaged groups in underclass areas, and for informing public policies that address these issues.