Objective and subjective features of children's neighborhoods: relations to parental regulatory strategies and children's social competence

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Abstract

This study examines the relative contributions of objective neighborhood ratings and mothers' and children's perceptions of neighborhood qualities to parental regulatory and supervisory strategies and social adjustment of third graders. Sixty-three children (32 boys, 31 girls) from a range of neighborhoods in two midsized, Southern California communities and their mothers comprised the sample. Information about neighborhoods was derived from surveys and independent raters. Parental supervisory strategies and rules regarding access to the neighborhood were based on telephone interviews. Social adjustment was assessed using standard sociometric protocols, teacher ratings, and a self-report loneliness questionnaire. Mothers' perceptions of poorer neighborhood quality were related to children's social skills and perceived loneliness. In a number of instances, relations were mediated by greater use of regulatory strategies, such as supervision and limitation of activities in less than optimal neighborhoods. The importance of distinguishing subjective and objective views of neighborhoods is emphasized.

Introduction

The neighborhood environment has increasingly come to be viewed as an important context for children's development. Bronfenbrenner (1989), Furstenberg, Cook, Eccles, Elder, and Sameroff (1999), and Garbarino (1982) have argued convincingly that physical, social, and cultural aspects of contexts such as the family, school, and neighborhood represent interesting spheres of influence on children's development. Children's day-to-day experiences in their neighborhoods have been characterized as having both direct and indirect influences on children's development. Garbarino, for example, suggests that neighborhood experiences play a direct role in children's development by serving as an arena for exploration and social interaction. In contrast, Ladd, Profilet, and Hart (1992), as well as Parke and Bhavnagri (1989) and Parke, Burks, Carson, Neville, and Boyum (1994), suggest that social and physical characteristics of neighborhood indirectly influence children's social development via management strategies that parents utilize to structure and regulate children's social experiences in their neighborhood. The purpose of the current study is to examine the role of objective quality and maternal perceptions of neighborhood characteristics play in parental regulation of children's activities and children's social competence.

Two approaches have been used to characterize children's neighborhoods: a descriptive approach and a census tract approach. The early works of Berg and Medrich (1980), Bryant (1985), and Medrich, Roizen, Rubin, & Buckley (1982) reflects the first approach. Although Medrich provided characterizations of play environments in different neighborhoods, neither developmental outcomes nor family processes were examined. On the other hand, Bryant, in her “neighborhood walk” method in which children describe sources of neighborhood support, activities, and resources, found that neighborhoods with more social and physical resources were predictive of children's social perspective taking and locus of control. Work continues in this tradition. For example, see Holaday, Swan, and Turner-Henson (1997) for recent assessment of perceptions of neighborhoods and activity patterns among chronically ill school aged children. However, for the most part, the studies continue to be descriptive in nature with little attention to the processes through which neighborhoods impact children's development.

Concerns regarding the impact of impoverished, urban neighborhoods on children's academic achievement and social development have prompted renewed investigation of “neighborhood effects” on parenting practices and developmental outcomes of young children and adolescents Brooks-Gunn, 1995, Brooks-Gunn et al., 1993, Coulton & Pandey, 1992, Elder et al., 1995, Klebanov et al., 1994, Kupersmidt et al., 1995, Steinberg et al., 1995. This work reflects the second approach to characterizing neighborhoods through the use of census tract data. Using US census tract data, Coulton and Pandey (1992) found that youngsters in high poverty areas differed from those in low-poverty areas on several outcomes including third grade reading scores, birth weight, infant deaths, and juvenile delinquency. A related Australian study (Homel & Burns, 1989) found that children in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods (based on census tracts) reported higher loneliness, feelings of rejection, worry, and lower life satisfaction compared to children in less disadvantaged areas or non-inner-city neighborhoods.

Although a number of recent studies find evidence of “neighborhood effects” across a range of developmental outcomes in both adolescents and young children, these effects appear to be modest after taking into account “family effects.” Less is known about the mediating socialization processes that may, in turn, account for the effects of neighborhoods on children's outcomes. As Furstenberg et al. (1999, p. 120) argue, “…parents and their children differ far more within particular neighborhoods than they do between areas.” These authors note that family variations in neighborhoods are expressed by different socialization styles, featuring particular management strategies and child outcomes.

There is considerable evidence that management of children's social experiences is an important avenue of influence on children's social and academic development Ladd et al., 1992, Parke & Bhavnagri, 1989, Parke et al., 1994. A number of studies suggest more positive social and academic outcomes for children and adolescents when parents regulate children's social experiences through such managerial strategies as arranging for opportunities for formal and informal social interaction Krappman, 1986, Ladd & Golter, 1988, O'Donnell & Stueve, 1983, Rubin & Sloman, 1984 and supervising and monitoring activities Bhavnagri & Parke, 1991, Crouter et al., 1990, Patterson & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1984, Pulkkinen, 1981, Steinberg, 1986.

Recent studies indicate that parenting processes are related to the socioeconomic character of the neighborhoods in which families reside Klebanov et al., 1994, Klebanov et al., 1994. Work also suggests that parents' social integration within the neighborhood may be a predictor of more adequate parenting practices Furstenberg, 1993, Steinberg et al., 1995, Wilson, 1995. Steinberg et al. (1995) suggest that adolescents may benefit directly from the increased exchange of resources associated with parents' social integration and that parents who are more socially integrated may be more vigilant about their own and other people's children's behavior. Although much is known about the impact of parental regulatory strategies on children's adjustment, there is still limited understanding of the factors that account for parents' selection of management strategies and the contextual antecedents of parents' decisions to employ such regulatory or management strategies have been relatively unexplored. A primary goal of our study is to examine the extent to which neighborhood perceptions serve as organizers of parental regulatory strategies.

A broader conceptualization of neighborhoods also will enhance our understanding of how neighborhoods influence children and parents. Greater breadth across at least two dimensions seems relevant. First, although children from impoverished, inner-city neighborhoods are likely to represent a population of children at-risk for poor developmental outcomes by virtue of the greater accumulation of stressors and negative life events that frequently coexist with poverty (Patterson, Griessler, & Kupersmidt, 1992), ecologically oriented developmental theories such as Bronfenbrenner, 1979, Bronfenbrenner, 1989 suggest that it is relevant to assess the extent to which contextual factors such as neighborhood quality influence developmental outcomes among children from less disadvantaged circumstances and who represent a broad continuum of risk statuses. A process-oriented approach will contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms by which neighborhood quality is linked to children's social experiences and normative developmental outcomes. In addition, such an examination will enhance our understanding of the extent to which the interplay among neighborhood characteristics, parenting practices, and social adjustment outcomes in children is unique to inner-city neighborhoods or is representative of smaller, nonurban communities as well. Thus, an additional goal of this study is to extend the investigation of the influence of neighborhood characteristics on parental management strategies and developmental outcomes to an examination of children from heterogeneous, non-inner-city neighborhoods in order to broaden our understanding of the interplay between contextual factors and parenting practices.

Second, for the most part, research that examines the relative contributions of neighborhood factors and familial factors on developmental outcomes typically has adopted a sociological orientation to defining neighborhood characteristics emphasizing aggregate characteristics available at the census tract level such as percent of families on public assistance, percent unemployed, percent affluent neighbors, and ethnic diversity (see Brooks-Gunn, 1995). However, more molecular, descriptive levels of definition may be informative of children's actual experiences in their neighborhoods Berg & Medrich, 1980, Bryant, 1985, Medrich et al., 1982. Both objective and subjective aspects of the neighborhood may be particularly relevant in this regard: objective physical characteristics of children's neighborhoods such as traffic patterns, lighting, levels of crime, and vandalism as well as parents' subjective perceptions of qualities of their neighborhoods. Better descriptive analysis of a wide range of children's neighborhoods may provide useful information regarding the mechanisms through which the socioeconomic character of neighborhoods promote or constrain children's experiences in their neighborhoods and may shed light on possible links between neighborhood features and experiences and developmental outcomes for children. Mothers' perceptions of neighborhood opportunities and constraints may be as important as or more important than objective dimensions of the neighborhood context in determining utilization of community resources or the manner in which children's activities are regulated Elder et al., 1995, Furstenberg et al., 1999, Garbarino, 1982.

The current study addresses the following questions: (1) To what extent are objective neighborhood quality and perceptions of neighborhood quality associated with the social contact that children have in their neighborhoods, the limitations that are imposed on children's activities in the neighborhood, and other parental regulatory or supervisory practices? (2) Are children's and mothers' views of the neighborhoods related? (3) Are there associations between objective dimensions and characteristics of mothers' perceptions of the neighborhood and children's social adjustment? (4) Are links between neighborhood quality and children's social adjustment mediated by maternal regulation of children's experiences in the neighborhood (social experiences, limitations in activities, rules/supervision)? In addition, we attempt to rule out a number of alternative explanations for links among objective and subjective neighborhood quality, parenting strategies, and children's social adjustment by accounting for variables such as socioeconomic status and ethnicity. This is important in light of the associations between socioeconomic status and ethnicity and parental child-rearing practices Baldwin et al., 1990, Gecas, 1979, Knight et al., 1994, Kohn, 1983. In addition, to assess whether maternal perceptions of neighborhoods reflect more general negative or positive biases, we controlled for the level of maternal depression in our analyses.

Given the nondisadvantaged character of the neighborhoods that are assessed it is hypothesized that subjective measures of neighborhood quality will be more strongly linked to parental regulatory practices and children's social adjustment at school than objective measures. Further, it is hypothesized that dissatisfaction with neighborhood quality will be more strongly linked to children's reports of loneliness and social dissatisfaction than to social acceptance and social behavior. Finally, it is hypothesized that links between maternal perceptions of neighborhood quality and children's social adjustment will be mediated by mothers' regulatory practices (see Fig. 1). In contrast, children's perceptions of neighborhood quality will be directly associated with social adjustment.

Section snippets

Participants

Sixty-three third graders representing a range of social acceptance levels participated in the study along with their mothers. Data are also available from the authors on a subset of fathers who participated in the study. However, because mothers tended to manage and supervise children's activities, we have restricted our analyses to mothers. The 32 boys and 31 girls, who resided in neighborhoods in two midsized, Southern California communities, ranged in age from 7.97 to 9.42 years (mean=8.48)

Correspondence among objective neighborhood features, family background characteristics, and neighborhood perceptions

In general, objective assessments of neighborhoods suggested that most families did not live in disadvantaged neighborhoods. The median value for the objective rating of families' neighborhoods was 1.44 (range 1.22–2.67), indicating reasonable variability in terms of objective characteristics of the neighborhoods in the study. As might be expected, families with higher incomes lived in neighborhoods that were viewed by objective raters as less problematic (r=−.39, P<.01). However, no

Discussion

Our findings offer support for the notions of Bryant (1985) and Unger and Wandersman (1985) that a comprehensive definition of a neighborhood requires more than geographical boundaries and social demographic indicators. Perceptions of a neighborhood's character, the resources it provides, the social opportunities it affords, and the constraints that it may impose on children, emerged as important correlates of parents' management strategies for regulating children's activities and the social

Acknowledgements

The current study was supported by a National Science Foundation Grant BNS 8919391 and a McArthur Foundation Grant to Ross D. Parke and NICHD Grant HT 32391 to Ross D. Parke and Robin O'Neil. We are especially grateful to Robert Cupp and Joel Carbonella for the considerable effort devoted to the collection of the objective assessments of children's neighborhoods. In addition, we would like to thank Sue Isley, Mara Welsh, Shirley Wang, and Jeanette Lee for the time and energy involved in

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