University of Texas School of Public Health, Dallas, TX, USA.
J Youth Adolesc. 2012 Dec;41(12):1613-27. doi: 10.1007/s10964-012-9779-2. Epub 2012 Jun 27.
Despite evidence that neighborhoods confer both risk and resilience for youth development, the existing neighborhood research has a number of methodological limitations including lack of diversity in neighborhoods sampled and neighborhood characteristics assessed. The purpose of this study was to address these methodological limitations of existing research and to examine the relationship of neighborhood structural and social characteristics to family-level social processes and teacher-reported social competence during early adolescence. The study sample of 3,624 fifth graders (51 % girls) was ethnically diverse, including roughly even proportions of non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, and Hispanic youth. Neighborhood measures included economic disadvantage derived from the U.S. Census, physical and social disorder obtained by direct observation, and social capital from parental reports. Family-level social processes included parent reported family cohesion and youth reported maternal and paternal nurturance. We found that neighborhood factors significantly associated with youth social aggression and social competence but not social withdrawal, after controlling for individual demographic characteristics and parenting factors. There was limited evidence of moderation of family influences by neighborhood characteristics as well as the moderation of neighborhood effects by children's gender. Neighborhood physical disorder was associated with increased social aggression among boys but with increased social withdrawal among girls. Implications of the study's findings for research on neighborhoods and adolescent development and the development of preventive interventions are discussed.
尽管有证据表明社区会对青少年发展带来风险和韧性，但现有的社区研究存在许多方法学上的限制，包括样本社区的多样性不足和评估的社区特征有限。本研究旨在解决现有研究的这些方法学限制，并探讨社区结构和社会特征与家庭层面的社会过程以及教师报告的青少年早期社会能力之间的关系。该研究的样本包括 3624 名五年级学生（51%为女生），他们在种族上具有多样性，包括大致相同比例的非西班牙裔白人、非西班牙裔黑人以及西班牙裔青少年。社区衡量标准包括美国人口普查得出的经济劣势、通过直接观察获得的身体和社会混乱以及父母报告的社会资本。家庭层面的社会过程包括父母报告的家庭凝聚力以及青少年报告的母亲和父亲的养育。我们发现，在控制了个体人口特征和养育因素后，社区因素与青少年社交攻击和社交能力显著相关，但与社交退缩无关。家庭影响受到社区特征的调节以及社区效应受到孩子性别调节的证据有限。社区的物理混乱与男孩的社交攻击增加有关，但与女孩的社交退缩增加有关。本研究结果对社区与青少年发展以及预防干预措施发展的研究具有启示意义。
