Neighborhoods and Latino Family Life Study Notes

Neighborhoods and Latino Family Life and Adaptation

What is a Neighborhood?

People's definitions vary:

• Individual house.
• A few houses nearby.
• Several blocks in proximity.
• The entire city.

Administrative Units:

• Census tracts:
  • Defined by the US Bureau of Census.
  • Typically include 2,500 to 8,000 people.
  • Used to study sociodemographic effects.
• Zip code:
  • Encompasses 20,000 to 300,000 people.

Why Neighborhoods Matter for Child Development

• Children are influenced by their surroundings.
• Neighborhoods significantly impact children's well-being and adjustment.
• Experiences can greatly differ based on the neighborhood environment.

A Tale of Two Zip Codes

• Demonstrates how zip codes can affect life expectancy and opportunities, referencing a video featuring Deb & Maria who live one mile apart but have significantly different life expectancies.

Race & Redlining

• Acknowledges the impact of systemic racism on neighborhoods.
• Mention of 900 N Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
• Highlights housing segregation.

Developmental Theory: Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Model

• Adapted to focus on Black youth development and attachment processes:
  • Chronosystem:
  • Macrosystem: Racial Ethnic Justice, Mass Media, Policy, Social Media, Black Lives Matter Movement,
  • Exosystem: Neighbours, Foster Care System, Physical & Mental Health Systems, Parents Workplace, Public Policy, Juvenile Justice System, School System
  • Mesosystem: Mentors, Spiritual Community, Health Providers
  • Microsystem: Peers, Teachers, Parents, Extended Family & Fictive Kin
  • Individual: Internal Working Model, Attachment, Historical & Intergenerational Trauma, Cultural Strengths, Colourism
• Ecological system theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979)

Integrative Model for the Study of Developmental Competencies in Minority Children

1. Social Position Variables
   • Race
   • Social Class
   • Ethnicity
   • Gender
2. Racism
   • Prejudice
   • Discrimination
   • Oppression
3. Segregation
   • Residential
   • Economic
   • Social & Psychological
4. Adaptive Culture
   • Traditions & Cultural Legacies
   • Economic & Political Historics
   • Migration & Acculturation
   • Current Contextual
5. Promoting/Inhibiting Environments
   • Schools
   • Neighborhoods
   • Health Care
6. Child Characteristics
   • Age
   • Temperament
   • Health Status
   • Biological Factors
   • Physical Characteristics
7. Family
   • Structure & Roles
   • Family Values, Beliefs & Goals
   • Racial Socialization
   • Socioeconomic Status
8. Developmental Competencies
   • Cognitive
   • Social
   • Emotional
   • Linguistic
   • Biculturalism
   • Coping with Racism Demands

• The integrative model (García Coll et al., 1996)

Promoting vs. Inhibiting Environments

• Inhibiting Environments
  • Limited access to institutional resources
  • Residential segregation perpetuates racial and ethnic inequality
  • Concentrated poverty
  • Physical decay
• Promoting Environments
  • Access to institutional resources
  • Access to a co-ethnic community (García Coll et al., 1996)

Aspects of Neighborhoods Affecting Child Development

• Broken Windows Theory
• Neighborhood Disorder
• Norms and Collective Efficacy Theory
• Ethnic and Racial Concentration

Broken Windows Theory (Wilson & Kelling, 1982)

Disorder goes untreated leading to:

1. Citizens become fearful and withdraw from the community.
2. Informal social control decreases or is perceived as low by criminals.
3. Disorder and crime increase as criminals increase their activity in the area.

Neighborhood Disorder (Wandersman & Nation, 1988)

Observed or perceived physical and social features signaling breakdown of order:

• Social
  • Groups of idle people
  • Public intoxication or substance use
  • Gang activity
  • Street prostitution
  • Conflict and fighting
  • Hostile arguing
• Physical
  • Vacant or abandoned housing
  • Vandalized or run-down buildings
  • Abandoned cars
  • Graffiti
  • Litter/trash

Norms and Collective Efficacy Theory (Social Disorganization Theory)

• Community-level social connections including mutual trust, shared values, and willingness to intervene.
• High norms and collective efficacy:
  • Adolescents less likely to engage in crime and vandalism.
  • More likely to display behaviors such as school engagement and civic participation (Sampson, 1992; Sampson et al., 1997; Shaw & McKay, 1942).

Neighborhood Ethnic Concentration

• High concentration:
  • High mutual trust and better social relationships leading to well-being (+).
  • Potential for dysfunction (-).
• Neighborhood diversity:
  • May limit people's ability to develop strong social relationships (Social Disorganization Theory, Shaw & McKay, 1942).
• Ethnic-racial composition:
  • Shared language and cultural background.
  • More cultural resources.
  • Sense of belonging can filter out harmful effects of mainstream society.

Pathways of Neighborhood Effects on Youth Outcomes

Neighborhood influences Youth outcomes through:

• Institutions: quality, quantity, diversity, and affordability of community resources mediate neighborhood effects (i.e., schools).
• Relationships and ties: Families/Peers: parental attributes, social networks and behavior, and home environment characteristics
• Norms and collective efficacy: extent of formal and informal institutions present to monitor residents' behavior and physical threats

Mediator:

• Schools (quality, climate, norms, and demographic makeup): Living in disadvantaged neighborhoods can affect these school markers.
  • EX. Children and youth who moved to neighborhoods with few to moderate numbers of poor residents were more likely to attend schools with higher pass rates on achievement tests (Leventhal & Brooks‐Gunn, 2004).
• Health and social services (availability, quality, and affordability)
  • EX. Residence in poor and middle-income neighborhoods is associated with more emergency room visits than residence in affluent neighborhoods (Leventhal & Brooks‐Gunn, 2004).
• Recreational and social programs (parks, sports programs, art and theater programs, and community centers)
  • EX. Youth programs and after-school care have beneficial effects on adjustment (especially for low-income youth) (Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2000).

Pathways: Schools and Property Taxes

• Comparing funding for schools based on property taxes:
  • Ridge Rondout: 9,794 per child (below national average).
  • A contrasting school receives 28,639 per child.

Pathways: Parents

Neighborhood disadvantages lead to:

• Parent 1 distress
• Parent 2 distress
• Parental conflict
• Parent child conflict
• Child internalizing and externalizing symptoms

Pathways: Support Networks

• Support networks such as job referrals.
• Monitoring and caring for children
• Neighborhood violence, disorder, and poverty leads to Low parental functioning and Youth development

Pathways: Parental Supervision and Monitoring

• Neighborhood conditions (violence, poverty, and danger) influence parenting behaviors (warmth, harshness, supervision, and monitoring), which in turn affect youth development.
• EX. Parents in dangerous and impoverished neighborhoods may use restrictive monitoring techniques.
• EX. Parents who moved from low to middle income neighborhoods used less restrictive parenting practices.

Moving to Opportunity: An Experimental Study of Neighborhood Effects on Mental Health (Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn, 2011)

• Main Question: Consequences of moving from high-rise public housing in high-poverty neighborhood to private housing in similar or low-poverty neighborhoods.
• Experimental (Treatment) Group:
  • Vouchers and assistance to move to low-poverty neighborhoods only.
• Comparison Group (Section 8):
  • Vouchers geographically unrestricted.
• Control Group:
  • No vouchers.

Methods (Participants)

• Baseline Parental and Family Characteristics by Treatment Group: MTO Demonstration, New York City, 1994-1999

Methods (Measures)

• Neighborhood economic and social conditions
  • Neighborhood physical and social disorder (trash, graffiti, public drinking, public drug use or dealing, and abandoned buildings) 1= "not a big problem" 3= "a big problem"
  • Neighborhood satisfaction 1= "very satisfied" 5 "very dissatisfied"
  • Neighborhood quality (rated by the interviewers) Condition of the housing and street and the presence of garbage and drugs/alcohol (yes or no)
• Parents' mental health
  • Depressive and distress or anxiety symptoms 1= "not at all" 5= "all of the time"
• Children's mental health
  • Behavior problems 0= "not true" 2= "often true"
    • Anxious/Depressive (unhappy, sad, or depressed, too fearful or anxious)
    • Dependency (need to be near adults, cry a lot)
    • Headstrong (argue a lot, strong/hot temper)
    • Antisocial (lie and cheat, tease others a lot or cruel/mean to others)
• Family economic well-being
  • Current parental employment status, welfare receipt, and income for the past year

Results

• Neighborhood Characteristics at Follow-Up by Treatment Group: MTO Demonstration: New York City, 1998-2000
• Summary of Unstandardized Regression Coefficients (Standard Errors) for MTO Program Effects on Parental Mental Health and Family Economic Well-Being at Follow-Up: New York City, 1998-2000

Take Home Points from MTO Study

• The most significant benefits of the MTO program were noneconomic.
  • Parents who moved to low-poverty neighborhoods= greater mental health (fewer distress and depressive symptoms).
• Mental health impact of MTO were greater for children than for parents.
  • (8-13 years)
    • BOYS: Reduction in depressive/anxiety and dependency problems
    • (OVERALL) Fewer headstrong problems
• Lack of findings for girls
  • Differential exposure to neighborhood contexts (more restricted).
• Lack of findings for youth aged 14-18 years
  • Ability to travel back to their old neighborhood.
  • Disruption of peer networks
    • Residential mobility= may have negative health affects due to disturbance of social networks
  • Younger children may benefit more from their parents' superior mental health

Always Aware (Siempre Pendiente): Latina Mothers' Parenting in High-Risk Neighborhoods (Ceballos et al., 2012)

• Main Questions:
  • What parenting practices are identified by Latina mothers in response to neighborhood stressors and community violence?
  • Are there parenting goals or culturally specific meanings that Latina mothers attribute to their parenting in dangerous neighborhoods?

Methods

• 49 Latina mothers in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods in Detroit, Michigan.
• Mothers with a child in the 4th or 5th grade.
• Lived in two census tracts where 28\% and 27\% of families lived below the poverty threshold.
• Biological mothers (92\%%), grandmothers (4\%%), and legal guardians (4\%%).
• Mean age: 35 years (SD=5.75); 63\% were married; 26\% were single parenting
• 57\% were born outside the U.S.
• 49\% of the mothers reported annual personal incomes under \$10,000, 49\% had received government assistance at some time, and 51\% had not acquired high school diplomas.
• Research design.
  • Qualitative

Interview Questions

1. Do you feel that your neighborhood has a positive effect on your child? How?
2. Do you feel that your neighborhood has a negative effect on your child? How?
3. What are the most serious dangers faced by children in your neighborhood?
4. Do you feel you can help your child handle the danger s/he faces in your neighborhood? How?
5. How often do you worry about the dangers your child faces in your neighborhood?
6. Do you talk to your child about the dangers in your neighborhood? How often?
7. In order for kids to be successful growing up in your neighborhood, what advice would you give a mother raising a son?
8. In order for kids to be successful growing up in your neighborhood, what advice would you give a mother raising a daughter?
9. What do you do to try to prevent your neighborhood from having a harmful effect on your child?
10. Are there other adults in your neighborhood who guide your child toward success?

Coding Categories for Parenting Practices and Goals

Major Findings

Four parenting strategies:

• (a) strict monitoring: strict curfews, intensive monitoring
• (b) physical and social withdrawal from the neighborhood: limiting contact with neighbors; limit time in the neighborhood.
• (c) engagement in positive, enriching activities.
• (d) an emphasis on parent–child communication: communication on violence: warnings & explanations: stressed the need to talk frequently, believed in the importance of listening, and asked their child many questions

Strict Parental Monitoring

• 61% discussed strict monitoring as critical.
• Mothers described monitoring as keeping a “tight leash”, supervising children “24 hours a day”, keeping children “in my eyesight”, and having their child “always with me . . . never, never goes alone, never”.

Withdrawal Strategies

• 35% of mothers engaged in withdrawal strategies, consisting of physical or social withdrawal from their neighborhood.
• Limiting contact with nonfamily members, restricting children's participation in neighborhood activities, and confining children to the home.
• Advising children not to talk to anyone and certainly “don’t trust anyone.”

Engagement in Enriching Activities

• 20% of mothers reported purposely engaging their children in positive activities, including school- or community-based sports teams, church activities, school programs (e.g., musical concerts, tutoring).
• Seeking activities located outside of their neighborhoods.

Communication

• 63% of mothers declared that parent – child communication was an imperative for successful parenting

Communication: Warning about Neighborhood Violence

• Honest and truthful communication about the dangers of the neighborhood.

Take Home Points

• Neighborhood can impact child development directly or indirectly via parenting.
• There are multiple aspects of neighborhood that are associated with youth development.
• Adaptive parenting is important in disadvantaged and dangerous neighborhood.