SBP: Why Neighborhoods Matter: A Causal Mediation Analysis of Contextual Effects on Child Academic Achievement

在贫穷的社区中长大会损害儿童的发展，但目前还不清楚，究竟是什么让这些社区对儿童生活的其他方面如此重要。这个项目研究了为什么在贫困社区长大会影响孩子的学习成绩。在许多不同的学科中，人们普遍假设，生活在贫困社区对儿童学习的影响可能是由于学校质量的差异、暴露于各种健康危害和/或暴露于暴力犯罪。然而，几乎没有实证研究对这些假设的解释进行严格的实证检验。这个项目将填补一个关键的空白，即为什么社区对儿童很重要。该报告的研究结果将反映公众对近期社区不平等加剧的担忧，以及正在进行的关于减轻集中贫困有害影响的最有效干预措施的公开辩论。由于来自弱势社区的儿童的不良教育结果可能会降低科学素养，阻碍美国的经济竞争力，并对成年后的人类繁荣造成障碍，因此，本项目的研究结果侧重于理解和减轻社区贫困对儿童学习的影响，这将有助于促进国家的健康、繁荣和福利。该项目将通过链接和分析来自多个不同来源的数据，评估社区贫困的影响是否源于学校质量、健康危害或暴力方面的差异。这些资料来源包括：(a)《早期儿童纵向研究》和《芝加哥社区人类发展项目》中大量儿童的学习成绩小组数据，(b)《美国人口普查》和《美国社区调查》关于社区社会经济构成的数据，(c)《美国国家教育统计中心》关于学校的行政数据，(d)关于铅和空气污染等环境健康危害的数据，来自芝加哥公共卫生部和美国环境保护署，最后(e)来自Location， Inc.的当地暴力犯罪率数据。利用这些关联的数据源、潜在结果框架和新颖的统计方法，该项目将估算社区贫困对学习成绩的累积影响，然后将这些影响分解为不同的组成部分，这些组成部分是由于居民儿童就读的学校特征的差异、铅和其他神经毒素暴露的差异、以及接触暴力犯罪的差异。该项目的研究结果将为有关学业成绩、贫困和邻里关系对儿童结局的影响，特别是与暴力和健康风险有关的影响的社会学理论提供信息。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Growing up in a poor neighborhood harms child development, but it remains unclear exactly what it is about these neighborhoods that make them so consequential above and beyond other aspects of children’s lives. This project examines why growing up in a poor neighborhood affects child academic achievement. Across many different academic disciplines, it is widely hypothesized that the effects of living in a poor neighborhood on child learning may be due to differences in school quality, exposure to various health hazards, and/or exposure to violent crime. Yet there is almost no empirical research that has put these hypothesized explanations to a rigorous empirical test. This project will fill a critical gap about why neighborhoods matter for children. Its findings will speak to public concerns about recent growth in neighborhood inequality as well as ongoing public debates about the most effective interventions for mitigating the harmful effects of concentrated poverty. Because the poor educational outcomes of children from disadvantaged neighborhoods likely work to reduce scientific literacy, hamper the economic competitiveness of the U.S., and engender obstacles to human flourishing in adulthood, findings from this project focused on understanding and mitigating the effects of neighborhood poverty on child learning will contribute to advancing the nation’s health, prosperity, and welfare. This project will evaluate whether the effects of neighborhood poverty are due to differences in school quality, health hazards, or violence by linking and analyzing data from multiple different sources. These sources include (a) panel data on academic achievement from large cohorts of children in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study and the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, (b) data on the socioeconomic composition of neighborhoods from the U.S. Census and American Community Survey, (c) administrative data on schools from the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics, (d) data on environmental health hazards, such as lead and air pollution, from the Chicago Department of Public Health and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and finally, (e) data on local violent crime rates from Location, Inc. Using these linked data sources, the potential outcomes framework, and novel statistical methods designed to adjust for the non-random selection of families into different neighborhoods over time, the project will estimate the cumulative effects of neighborhood poverty on academic achievement and then decompose these effects into components due to differences in the characteristics of schools attended by resident children, differences in exposure to lead and other neurotoxins, and differences in exposure to violent crime. Findings from the project will inform sociological theories regarding academic attainment, poverty, and neighborhood effects on child outcomes, particularly those tied to violence and risks to health.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.