The relative risk : parenting, poverty, and peers in the three city study of moving to opportunity

This study shows how kin networks, parental monitoring, and housing mobility structure low-income adolescents' engagement in risky and delinquent behavior. I use ethnographic data from a mixed-method study of a randomized housing experiment: The Three City Study of Moving to Opportunity. The ethnography was conducted over 8 months in 2004-2005 with thirty-nine families, including fifty-two male and female adolescents (ages 11-23) in greater Boston, Los Angeles, and New York. Beginning in 1994, two-thirds of the families (members of the experimental complier group) relocated from public and assisted housing in high poverty neighborhoods to very low poverty neighborhoods, using a rental housing voucher and other program supports. The remaining one-third of the sample, a control group, continued to live in high poverty "project" neighborhoods. Using case-study logic, I examine how the content and location of adolescent's daily routines and social ties to friends and relatives are associated with their involvement in risky and delinquent behavior. I also examine the role of parental monitoring and housing mobility patterns in moderating exposure to risk.I find that for most adolescents in the experimental-complier group, the neighborhood of residence has not become the primary neighborhood of influence in that the former only partially structures their routines and important social relations. How parents manage their social relations, especially with kin, shapes their children's level of engagement in new residential neighborhoods, and involvement in risky and delinquent behavior.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Weismann, Gretchen D

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Xavier de Souza Briggs.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/44365

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/44365