Mediating Effects of the Social Structure in High Risk Neighborhoods: A Research Brief of the Denver Youth Survey

• NCJ Number: 139803
• Author(s): Elliott; Huizinga
• Date Published: 1990
• Length: 5 pages
• Corporate Author: University of Colorado
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Brief taken from Denver Youth Survey Report Number 10 presented at 1990 meetings of the American Sociological Association

Annotation

This paper deals with the neighborhood as the immediate social context in which individuals and families interact and encounter institutions and agents of the larger society which regulate and control access to community opportunity structures and resources.

Abstract

Growing up in neighborhoods characterized by chronic unemployment, poverty, and other indicators of social disorganization and where youth are exposed to multiple forms of problem behavior and deviant lifestyles seriously undermines conventional socialization efforts of families and schools. The Denver Neighborhood Study (DNS) was conducted to evaluate the construct validity of several approaches to identifying appropriate neighborhood units for analyzing neighborhood effects and to estimate direct and indirect effects of neighborhood-level structural and cultural variables on individual problem behavior rates. The DNS, part of the Denver Youth Study, obtained data from a probability sample of households in high-risk areas. Data collection involved face-to-face interviews with each eligible youth and one of his or her parents between January and March of 1988, 1989, and 1990. When respondents were asked about neighborhood size, nearly 60 percent identified the block on which they lived or this block and several blocks in each direction. An additional 28 percent identified the neighborhood as an area within a 15-minute walk from their house. Perceived neighborhood size varied by type of question asked. For example, when asked about resources in the neighborhood, respondents often located agencies, schools, and service organizations clearly outside of the area identified as the neighborhood in the earlier question. Construct validation analysis suggested that the block group may be the best unit of analysis for measuring neighborhood effects. Census-type indicators of social disorganization accounted for a reasonable level of explained variance in contextual variables postulated to mediate the relation between neighborhood structural features and aggregated rates of self-reported problem behavior by youth. It also appeared that effects of poverty, mobility, single-parent families, and ethnic diversity were primarily mediated by neighborhood social controls, bonding, value and normative consensus, and criminal opportunities, as specified in social disorganization theory. 1 figure