Community Context and Child Learning and Development

孩子们在一个多层面的环境中成长，包括他们的家庭、学校和社区。本研究将探讨社区和家庭如何影响男孩和女孩在小学和中学期间的学业成绩、攻击行为和抑郁情绪。目前的行为研究表明，儿童的成长和发展受到社区资本（社区的经济健康和活力）、社会资本（社区居民和机构之间的互动）和人力资本（个人和家庭获得教育和良好工作的机会）的影响。本项目将研究这三种形式的资本，试图辨明每种资本在塑造儿童方面所起的作用，以及它们对男孩和女孩的影响有何不同。该研究将利用已经收集的广泛数据：(1)1990年美国人口普查数据，该数据提供了社区社会和人口特征的衡量标准；(2)犯罪数据，用于衡量社区内的暴力水平；(3)约翰霍普金斯大学预防项目收集的2000名儿童及其照顾者的数据。将使用的统计程序将从简单的描述性统计和交叉表到结构方程和潜在增长模型，以了解社区和家庭特征对儿童在一年级至七年级期间如何学习和发展的复杂影响。

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.