Investigator:  Deborah Gorman-Smith, Ph.D.  
Funded by:   William T. Grant Foundation, Faculty Scholar Award

This study is designed to conduct a series of analyses to develop a theoretically and empirically based model of community influence on parenting practices and family relationship characteristics among families living in inner-city and other urban poor communities. Using data gathered through the Chicago Youth Development Study and the SAFE Children intervention, a series of analytic studies are being conducted to address seven primary questions regarding community, neighborhood and family influence on children's development. The intended outcome of this program of research is that the empirical and conceptual yield will provide information that can guide public policy and inform intervention and prevention efforts aimed at children and families living in the inner-city. These questions are:

(1) What are the essential aspects of communities in understanding their impact on families and child development? There are a multitude of characteristics that can be identified and used to describe communities. What are the defining characteristics of community that are necessary and sufficient components for understanding their impact on families and child development? How do these characteristics relate to one another?

(2) What is the relation of neighborhoods to communities in affecting families and children? Previous research suggests that two aspects of community environments are important for understanding risk and development; community structural characteristics and neighborhood social organization (Sampson, in press). What is the dependence between community and neighborhood characteristics? Can you have good neighborhoods in bad communities or bad neighborhoods in good communities? If so, what is the impact on families? Is there a direct effect of community characteristics on family functioning and individual behavior or are the effects through community influence on neighborhood characteristics? Do community and neighborhood interact to affect development; is the effect additive or mediated?

(3) What is the relation between individuals' perceptions of neighborhood qualities and those qualities externally judged? In trying to understand the relation of neighborhood qualities to family functioning and risk, how do the individual's perception about the neighborhood in which they live relate to the aggregated views of others living within that neighborhood and what is the relative utility and similarity between individual perceptions and externally judged ratings?

(4) How can one determine the direction of observed relations between communities, neighborhoods, and families? Is the direction of influence "top-down"; communities influence neighborhoods which affect families? Or, does the direction of influence run from families to neighborhoods to communities? Is there a more complex relation?

(5) What is the nature of the transaction between families and communities over time? How do the characteristics of the community, neighborhood and family relate over time? How does change in one relate to change in the other?

(6) Are the same factors that are related to academic success, employment, and emotional health related to developmental or behavioral problems such as delinquency, depression? How consistent is the relation of community and neighborhood characteristics across problems/outcomes and groups? What is the relative importance of specific indicators of community and neighborhood for specific types of outcomes?

(7) Are there variations in the relation of community, neighborhood, family, and youth outcome for different ethnic groups? Do the same models hold for African-American, Latino and Caucasian families living in poor urban communities? If not, what are the implications for intervention and prevention programs?