MEASURING NEIGHBORHOOD CONTEXT FOR YOUNG-CHILDREN IN AN URBAN AREA

Awareness of worsening conditions in urban areas has led to a growing interest in how neighborhood context affects children. Although the ec ological perspective within child development has acknowledged the rel evance of community factors, methods of measuring the neighborhood con text for children have been quite limited. An approach to measuring ne ighborhood environments was tested using the average perceptions of ca regivers of young children sampled from high- and low-risk block group s. Individual- and aggregate-level reliabilities and discriminant vali dity were acceptable for dimensions of neighborhood quality and change , participation in block organizations, disorder and incivilities, ser vice usage and quality, and retaliation against adults. However, for m easures of neighborhood interaction and the tendency of adults to inte rvene with children, there was virtually no agreement among respondent s within block groups, resulting in pool aggregate reliability. A mode l of variability may be a more promising way of characterizing neighbo rhoods along these dimensions.