Community Connections and African American Adolescents

描述（由申请人提供）：Dr. Jeanne M.麦金托什，德保罗大学心理学助理教授，正在进行青少年风险和弹性领域的应用研究。博士，麦金托什将完善和研究社区连接的结构，或青少年的主要发展环境之间的连接程度，低收入城市非洲裔美国青少年及其家庭的样本。这一系列研究预计最终将导致制定一个针对具体文化的干预措施，通过协助低收入的城市非洲裔美国青少年及其家庭促进和参与土著和组织的中间系统支持网络，提高协调服务干预措施的有效性。科学发展奖将资助与这一目标有关的四项研究。研究一对青少年社区联系的内容、结构和过程进行了定性研究。研究二是社区关系量表的编制。研究3检验了测量的信度、效度和因素结构。研究4检验了一个模型，预测社区联系缓和邻里风险和心理问题之间的关系。申请人的研究职业发展计划通过专注于科学写作和出版，定量和定性研究方法和granecraft领域的技能发展来支持这些目标。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Dr. Jeanne M. McIntosh, Assistant Professor of Psychology at DePaul University, is pursuing applied research in the area of adolescent risk and resilience. Dr, McIntosh will refine and examine the construct of Community Connections, or degree of connectedness between adolescents' primary developmental settings, among samples of low-income urban African American adolescents and their families. This line of research is expected to eventually result in the development of a culture-specific intervention component that will enhance the effectiveness of coordinated service interventions by assisting low-income urban African American adolescents and their families to promote and engage indigenous and organizational mesosystem support networks. The Scientific Development Award will fund four studies related to this goal. Study 1 involves a qualitative examination of the content, structure, and process of adolescents' Community Connections. Study 2 involves construction of the Community Connections Inventory. Study 3 examines the reliability, validity, and factor structure of the measure. Study 4 tests a model predicting that Community Connections moderates the relationship between Neighborhood Risk and Psychological Problems. The applicant's research career development plan supports these goals by focusing on skill development in the areas of scientific writing and publication, quantitative and qualitative research methods, and grantsmanship.