Neighborhood and school contextual factors: longitudinal outcomes in a high-poverty adolescent population
type: CreativeWork
description: Research framed by Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, suggests that neighborhood and school contextual factors greatly influence adolescent outcomes. While this research examines the multiple contexts that impact adolescent development, missing from the literature is an assessment that uses multiple data sources. Therefore, the present study used adolescent survey, school records, and Census data to examine the effects of perceived and structural neighborhood and school factors longitudinally. Additionally, many neighborhood-level studies treat demographic variables as covariates. But since poverty can be structurally portrayed in various ways, neighborhood-level population density was included as a predictor variable. The present study examined the effects of neighborhood and school context on adolescent achievement, attendance, and school violations. It was hypothesized that population density, perceived neighborhood connectedness, safety, and school belonging would predict poorer student academic outcomes. A linear mixed model was used for the analyses. The study's sample came from the Mobile Youth Survey (MYS), a fourteen-year longitudinal research project conducted in the low-income and public housing neighborhoods of Mobile, Alabama. The sample was over 99% African American and participants were between the ages of 10 to 18. To assess participants longitudinally four waves of MYS data (2006-2009) were paired with subsequent academic years. Results indicated that school context explained a greater amount of the variance in the outcome variables in comparison to neighborhood context. Results also indicated that adolescent perceptions of neighborhood connectivity predicted higher reading achievement and increased school violations. Further, higher perceptions of school belongingness predicted increased reading and math achievement and lower rates of school violations and absences. High neighborhood-level population densities predicted increased student a…
abstract: Research framed by Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, suggests that neighborhood and school contextual factors greatly influence adolescent outcomes. While this research examines the multiple contexts that impact adolescent development, missing from the literature is an assessment that uses multiple data sources. Therefore, the present study used adolescent survey, school records, and Census data to examine the effects of perceived and structural neighborhood and school factors longitudinally. Additionally, many neighborhood-level studies treat demographic variables as covariates. But since poverty can be structurally portrayed in various ways, neighborhood-level population density was included as a predictor variable. The present study examined the effects of neighborhood and school context on adolescent achievement, attendance, and school violations. It was hypothesized that population density, perceived neighborhood connectedness, safety, and school belonging would predict poorer student academic outcomes. A linear mixed model was used for the analyses. The study's sample came from the Mobile Youth Survey (MYS), a fourteen-year longitudinal research project conducted in the low-income and public housing neighborhoods of Mobile, Alabama. The sample was over 99% African American and participants were between the ages of 10 to 18. To assess participants longitudinally four waves of MYS data (2006-2009) were paired with subsequent academic years. Results indicated that school context explained a greater amount of the variance in the outcome variables in comparison to neighborhood context. Results also indicated that adolescent perceptions of neighborhood connectivity predicted higher reading achievement and increased school violations. Further, higher perceptions of school belongingness predicted increased reading and math achievement and lower rates of school violations and absences. High neighborhood-level population densities predicted increased student a…
author: Hitchcock, Shannon Marie
language: en_US
language: English
keywords: Sociology
date published: 2013
date modified: 2026-07-27T18:44:25Z
provider: University of Alabama
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Alabama Libraries