Community Context and Child Learning and Development

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Children grow up in a many-layered environment that includes their families, their schools, and their communities. This research will investigate how communities and families affect the academic achievement, aggressive behavior, and depressed feeling of boys and girls during the time that they are in elementary and middle school. Current behavioral research has suggested that child growth and development is affected by community capital (the economic health and vitality of a neighborhood), social capital (the interaction among the residents and institutions of a neighborhood), and human capital (individual and family access to education and good jobs). This project will look at these three forms of capital to try to discern just what role each plays in the shaping of children, and how they may affect boys and girls differently.The study will utilize a wide range of data that have already been collected: (1) 1990 U.S. census data, which provide measures of social and demographic characteristics of neighborhoods; (2) crime data to measure levels of violence within neighborhoods; and (3) data collected by the Prevention Program of Johns Hopkins University on 2000 children and their care-takers. The statistical procedures to be used will range from simple descriptive statistics and cross-tabulations to structural equation and latent growth modeling in order to understand the complex effects of neighborhood and family characteristics on how children learn and develop while they are in grades one through seven.