It’s More the Exception Rather Than the Rule: African American Families’ Neighborhoods and Youth’s Academic Performance During Middle School

Abstract

Neighborhoods are an important part of the social milieu of adolescence and academic performance. Using experiential neighborhood profiles, this study examined risks and assets to determine how neighborhood structural and relational dynamics were associated with academic achievement during early adolescence. The sample included 723 African American socioeconomically diverse families (M_{youth age} = 12.27 years, SD = 0.55). Results showed that neighborhood structural disadvantage was unrelated to academic achievement, whereas neighborhood profiles were associated with academic performance in eighth grade, after adjusting for seventh grade GPA. Neighborhood profiles characterized by positive social relationships were associated with higher achievement. Authors discuss the importance of examining neighborhood risks and supports for African American youth’s academic adjustment.

Keywords

neighborhood African American early adolescence academic achievement

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aber

Nieto

(2000). Suggestions for the investigation of psychological wellness in the neighborhood context: Toward a pluralistic neighborhood theory. In Cicchetti

Rappaport

Sardler

Weissberg

(Eds.), The promotion of wellness in children and adolescents (pp. 185-219). Washington, DC: CWLA Press.

Ainsworth

J. W.

(2002). Why does it take a village? The mediation of neighborhood effects on educational achievement. Social Forces, 81, 117-152. doi:10.1353/sof.2002.0038

Anderman

E. M.

Midgley

(1997). Changes in achievement goal orientations, perceived academic competence, and grades across the transition to middle-level schools. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 22, 269-298. doi:10.1016/j.cedpsych.2004.02.002

Anderson

Leventhal

Dupéré

(2014). Exposure to neighborhood affluence and poverty in childhood and adolescence and academic achievement and behavior. Applied Developmental Science, 18, 123-138. doi:10.1080/10888691.2014.924355

Barber

B. K.

Olsen

J. A.

(2004). Assessing the transitions to middle and high school. Journal of Adolescent Research, 19, 3-30. doi:10.1177/0743558403258113

Bowen

N. K.

Bowen

G. L.

Ware

W. B.

(2002). Neighborhood social disorganization, families, and the educational behavior of adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Research, 17, 468-490. doi:10.1177/0743558402175003

Boyle

Norman

Rees

(2004). Changing places: Do changes in the relative deprivation of areas influence limiting long-term illness and mortality among non-migrant people living in non-deprived households? Social Science & Medicine, 58, 2459-2471. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2003.09.011

Brody

G. H.

Conger

Gibbons

F. X.

McBride Murry

Gerrard

Simons

R. L.

(2001). The influence of neighborhood disadvantage, collective socialization, and parenting on African American children’s affiliation with deviant peers. Child Development, 72, 1231-1246. doi:10.1111/1467-8624.00344

Burchinal

McCartney

Steinberg

Crosnoe

Friedman

S. L.

McLoyd

, . . . NICHD Early Child Care Research Network. (2011). Examining the Black-White achievement gap among low-income children using the NICHD Study for Early Child Care and Youth Development. Child Development, 82, 1404-1420. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01620.x

10.

Burchinal

M. R.

Roberts

J. E.

Zeisel

S. A.

Rowley

S. J.

(2008). Social risk and protective factors for African American children’s academic achievement and adjustment during the transition to middle school. Developmental Psychology, 44, 286-292. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.44.1.286

11.

Burton

L. M.

Price-Spratlen

Spencer

M. B.

(1997). On ways of thinking about measuring neighborhoods: Implications for studying context and developmental outcomes for children. In Brooks-Gunn

Duncan

G. J.

Aber

J. L.

(Eds.), Neighborhood poverty: Vol. 2. Policy implications in studying neighborhoods (pp. 132-144). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

12.

Castro-Schilo

Grimm

K. J.

(2018). Using residualized change versus difference scores for longitudinal research. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 35, 32-58. doi:10.1177/0265407517748387

13.

Chavous

T. M.

Rivas-Drake

Smalls

Griffin

Cogburn

(2008). Gender matters, too: The influences of school racial discrimination and racial identity on academic engagement outcomes among African American adolescents. Developmental Psychology, 44, 637-654. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.44.3.637

14.

Celeux

Soromenho

(1996). An entropy criterion for assessing the number of clusters in a mixture model. Journal of Classification, 13, 195-212. doi:/10.1007/BF01246098

15.

Cole

D. A.

Preacher

K.J.

(2014). Manifest variable path analysis: Potentially serious and misleading consequences due to uncorrected measurement error. Psychological Methods, 19, 300-315. doi:10.1037/a0033805

16.

Coleman

J. S.

(1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94(Suppl.), S95-S120.

17.

Collins

L. M.

Schafer

J. L.

Kam

(2001). A comparison of inclusive and restrictive strategies in modern missing data procedures. Psychological Methods, 6, 330-351. doi:10.1037//1082-989X.6.4.330

18.

Daly

B. P.

Shin

R. Q.

Thakral

Selders

Vera

(2009). School engagement among urban adolescents of color: Does perception of social support and neighborhood safety really matter? Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 38, 63-74. doi:10.1007/s10964-008-9294-7

19.

Eccles

J. S.

(1997). MADICS study of adolescent development in multiple contexts, 1991-1998. Cambridge, MA: Murray Research Archive.

20.

Elliott

D. S.

Menard

Rankin

Elliott

Wilson

W. J.

Huizinga

(2006). Good kids from bad neighborhoods: Successful development in social context. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

21.

Francois

Overstreet

Cunningham

(2012). Where we live: The unexpected influence of urban neighborhoods on the academic performance of African American adolescents. Youth & Society, 44, 307-328, doi:10.1177/0044118X11399109

22.

Garcia-Coll

Lamberty

Jenkins

McAdoo

H. P.

Crnic

Wasik

B. H.

Vasquez-Garcia

(1996). An integrative model for the study of developmental competencies in minority children. Child Development, 67, 1891-1914. doi:10.1111/1467-8624.ep9706060144

23.

Gonzales

N. A.

Cauce

A. M.

Friedman

R. J.

Mason

C. A.

(1996). Family, peer, and neighborhood influences on academic achievement among African-American adolescents: One-year prospective effects. American Journal of Community Psychology, 24, 365-387. doi:10.1007/BF02512027

24.

Gutman

L. M.

Midgley

(2000). The role of protective factors in supporting the academic achievement of poor African American students during the middle school transition. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 29, 223-248. doi:10.1023/A:1005108700243

25.

Gutman

L. M.

Peck

S. C.

Malanchuk

Sameroff

A. J.

Eccles

J. S.

(2017). Moving through adolescence: Developmental trajectories of African American and European American youth: VI. Academic functioning. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 82(4), 95-105. doi:10.1111/mono.12332

26.

Gutman

L. M.

Sameroff

A. J.

Cole

(2003). Academic growth curve trajectories from 1st grade to 12th grade: Effects of multiple social risk factors and preschool child factors. Developmental Psychology, 39, 777-790. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.39.4.777

27.

Gutman

L. M.

Sameroff

A. J.

Eccles

J. S.

(2002). The academic achievement of African American students during early adolescence: An examination of multiple risk, promotive, and protective factors. American Journal of Community Psychology, 30, 367-400. doi:10.1023/A:1015389103911

28.

Harding

D. J.

(2003). Counterfactual models of neighborhood effects: The effect of neighborhood poverty on dropping out and teenage pregnancy. American Journal of Sociology, 109, 676-719. doi:10.1086/379217

29.

Hill

N. E.

Herman-Stahl

M. A.

(2002). Neighborhood safety and social involvement: Associations with parenting behaviors and depressive symptoms among African-American and Euro-American mothers. Journal of Family Psychology, 16, 209-219. doi:10.1037/0893-3200.16.2.209

30.

Hill

N. E.

Witherspoon

(2011). Race, ethnicity, and social class. In Underwood

M. K.

Rosen

L. H.

(Eds.), Social development: Relationships in infancy, childhood and adolescence (pp. 316-346). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

31.

Hopson

L. M.

Lee

Tang

(2014). A multilevel analysis of school racial composition and ecological correlates in academic success. Children and Youth Services Review, 44, 126-134. doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2014.05.026

32.

Bentler

P. M.

(1995). Evaluating model fit. In Hoyle

R. H.

(Ed.), Structural equation modeling: Concepts, issues, and applications (pp.76-99). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

33.

Jencks

Mayer

(1990). The social consequences of growing up in a poor neighborhood. In Lynn

L. E.

McGeary

M. F. H.

(Eds.), Inner-city poverty in the United States (pp. 111-186). Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

34.

Kingston

Huizinga

Elliott

D. S.

(2009). A test of social disorganization theory in high-risk urban neighborhoods. Youth & Society, 41, 53-79. doi:10.1177/0044118X09338343

35.

Leventhal

Brooks-Gunn

(2000). The neighborhoods they live in: The effects of neighborhood residence on child and adolescent outcomes. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 309-337. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.126.2.309

36.

Leventhal

Brooks-Gunn

(2004). A randomized study of neighborhood effects on low-income children’s educational outcomes. Developmental Psychology, 40, 488-507. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.40.4.488

37.

Luster

McAdoo

H. P.

(1994). Factors related to the achievement and adjustment of young African American children. Child Development, 65, 1080-1094. doi:10.2307/1131306

38.

Marsh

H. W.

Lüdtke

Trautwein

Morin

A. J. S.

(2009). Classical latent profile analysis of academic self-concept dimensions: Synergy of person- and variable-centered approaches to theoretical models of self-concept. Structural Equation Modeling, 16, 191-225. doi:10.1080/10705510902751010

39.

Matthews

S. A.

(2011). Spatial polygamy and the heterogeneity of place: Studying people and place via egocentric methods. In Burton

L. M.

Kemp

S. P.

Leung

Matthews

S. A.

Takeuchi

D. T.

(Eds.), Communities, neighborhoods, and health (pp. 35-55). New York, NY: Springer.

40.

Milam

A. J.

Furr-Holden

C. D.

Whitaker

Smart

Leaf

Cooley-Strickland

(2012). Neighborhood environment and internalizing problems in African American children. Community Mental Health Journal, 48, 39-44. doi:10.1007/s10597-011-9379-8

41.

Moder

(2010). Alternatives to F-test in one way ANOVA in case of heterogeneity of variances (a simulation study). Psychological Test and Assessment Modeling, 52, 343-353.

42.

Murry

V. M.

Berkel

Gaylord-Harden

N. K.

Copeland-Linder

Nation

(2011). Neighborhood poverty and adolescent development. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 21, 114-128. doi:10.1111/j.1532-7795.2010.00718.x

43.

Odgers

C. L.

Moffitt

T. E.

Tach

L. M.

Sampson

R. J.

Taylor

Matthews

C. L.

Caspi

(2009). The protective effects of neighborhood collective efficacy on British children growing up in deprivation: a developmental analysis. Developmental Psychology, 45, 942-957. doi:10.1037/a0016162

44.

Olinsky

Chen

Harlow

(2003). The comparative efficacy of imputation methods for missing data in structural equation modeling. European Journal of Operational Research, 151, 53-79. doi:10.1016/S0377-221(02)00578-7

45.

Oyserman

Bybee

Terry

(2006). Possible selves and academic outcomes: How and when possible selves impel action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 188-204. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.91.1.188

46.

Oyserman

Yoon

K.-I.

(2009). Neighborhood effects on racial-ethnic identity: The undermining role of segregation. Race and Social Problems, 1, 67-76. doi:10.1007/s12552-009-9007-1

47.

Plybon

L. E.

Edwards

Butler

Belgrave

F. Z.

Allison

K. W.

(2003). Examining the link between neighborhood cohesion and school outcomes: The role of support coping among African American adolescent girls. Journal of Black Psychology, 29, 393-407. doi:10.1177/0095798403256892

48.

Richardson

J. B.

Van Brakle

(2013). The everyday struggle: Social capital, youth violence and parenting strategies for urban, low-income black male youth. Race and Social Problems, 5, 262-280. doi:10.1007/s12552-013-9103-0

49.

Rivas-Drake

Witherspoon

(2013). Racial identity from adolescence to young adulthood: Does prior neighborhood experience matter? Child Development, 84, 1918-1932. doi:10.1111/cdev.12095

50.

Sampson

R. J.

(1997). Collective regulation of adolescent misbehavior: Validation results from eighty Chicago neighborhoods. Journal of Adolescent Research, 12, 227-244. doi:10.1177/0743554897122005

51.

Sampson

R. J.

Morenoff

J. D.

Gannon-Rowley

(2002). Assessing “neighborhood effects”: Social processes and new directions in research. Annual Review of Sociology, 28, 443-478. doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.28.110601.141114

52.

Sampson

R. J.

Sharkey

(2008). Neighborhood selection and the social reproduction of concentrated racial inequality. Demography, 45, 1-29.

53.

Scales

P. C.

Benson

P. L.

Roehlkepartain

E. C.

Sesma

Jr. van Dulmen

(2006). The role of developmental assets in predicting academic achievement: A longitudinal study. Journal of Adolescence, 29, 691-708. doi:10.1016/j.adolescence.2005.09.001

54.

Seidman

Allen

Aber

J. L.

Mitchell

Feinman

(1994). The impact of school transitions in early adolescence on the self-system and perceived social context of poor urban youth. Child Development, 65, 507-522. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1994.tb00766.x

55.

Seidman

Yoshikawa

Roberts

Chesir–Teran

Allen

Friedman

J. L.

Aber

J. L.

(1998). Structural and experiential neighborhood contexts, developmental stage, and antisocial behavior among urban adolescents in poverty. Development and Psychopathology, 10, 259-281.

56.

Shin

R. Q.

(2011). The influence of Africentric values and neighborhood satisfaction on the academic self-efficacy of African American elementary school children. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 39, 218-228. doi:10.1002/j.2161-1912.2011.tb00636.x

57.

Shumow

Vandell

D. L.

Posner

(1999). Risk and resilience in the urban neighborhood: Predictors of academic performance among low-income elementary school children. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 45, 309-331.

58.

Simons

L. G.

Simons

R. L.

Conger

R. D.

Brody

G. H.

(2004). Collective socialization and child conduct problems: A multilevel analysis with an African American sample. Youth & Society, 35, 267-292. doi:10.1177/0044118X03255005

59.

Spencer

M. B.

(2006). Phenomenology and ecological systems theory: Development of diverse groups. In Lerner

Damon

(Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (pp. 829-893). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

60.

Spencer

M. B.

Cunningham

Swanson

D. P.

(1995). Identity as coping: Adolescent African-American males’ adaptive responses to high-risk environments. In Harris

H. W.

Blue

H. C.

Griffith

E. H.

(Eds.), Racial and ethnic identity: Psychological development and creative expression (pp. 31-52). New York, NY: Routledge.

61.

Spencer

M. B.

McDermott

P. A.

Burton

L. M.

Kochman

T. J.

(1997). An alternative approach to assessing neighborhood effects on early adolescent achievement and problem behavior. In Brooks-Gunn

Duncan

G. J.

Aber

J. L.

(Eds.), Neighborhood poverty: Policy implications in studying neighborhoods (Vol. 2, pp. 145-163). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

62.

Swanson

D. P.

Cunningham

Spencer

M. B.

(2003). Black males’ structural conditions, achievement patterns, normative needs, and “opportunities”. Urban Education, 38, 608-633. doi:10.1177/0042085903256218

63.

Trusty

(2002). African American’s educational expectations: Longitudinal causal models for women and men. Journal of Counseling and Development, 80, 332-345.

64.

Urban

J. B.

Lewin-Bizan

Lerner

R. M.

(2009). The role of neighborhood ecological assets and activity involvement in youth developmental outcomes: Differential impacts of asset poor and asset rich neighborhoods. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 30, 601-614. doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2009.07.003

65.

Vrieze

S. I.

(2012). Model selection and psychological theory: A discussion of the differences between the Akaike information criterion (AIC) and the Bayesian information criterion (BIC). Psychological Methods, 17, 228-243. doi:10.1037/a0027127

66.

Warren

R. B.

Warren

D. I.

(1977). The neighborhood organizer’s handbook. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

67.

Williams

T. R.

Davis

L. E.

Saunders

Williams

J. H.

(2002). Friends, family, and neighborhood understanding academic outcomes of African American youth. Urban Education, 37, 408-431. doi:10.1177/00485902037003006

68.

Witherspoon

D. P.

Daniels

L. L.

Mason

A. E.

Smith

E. P.

(2016). Racial-ethnic identity in context: Examining mediation of neighborhood factors on children’s academic adjustment. American Journal of Community Psychology, 57, 87-101. doi:10.1002/ajcp.12019

69.

Witherspoon

D. P.

Ennett

(2011). Stability and change in rural youth’s educational outcomes through the middle and high school years. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 40, 1077-1090. doi:10.1007/s10964-010-9614-6

70.

Witherspoon

D. P.

Hughes

D. L.

(2014). Early adolescent perceptions of neighborhood: Strengths, structural disadvantage, and relations to outcomes. Journal of Early Adolescence, 34, 866-895. doi:10.1177/0272431613510404

71.

Woolley

M. E.

Grogan-Kaylor

(2006). Protective family factors in the context of neighborhood: Promoting positive school outcomes. Family Relations, 55, 93-104. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3729.2006.00359.x