THE EFFECTS OF NEIGHBORHOOD DISADVANTAGE ON ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT

A conceptual framework for studying emerging neighborhood effects on i ndividual development is presented, identifying specific mechanisms an d processes by which neighborhood disadvantage influences adolescent d evelopmental outcomes. Using path analyses, the authors test the hypot hesis that these organizational and cultural features of neighborhoods mediate the effects of ecological disadvantage on adolescent developm ent and behavior; they then estimate the unique contribution of neighb orhood effects on development using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) . The study involves samples of neighborhoods from two sites, Chicago and Denver. The analyses support the hypothesis that the effects of ec ological disadvantage are mediated by specific organizational and cult ural features of the neighborhood. The unique influence of neighborhoo d effects is relatively small, but ill most cases these effects accoun t for a substantial part of the variance explained by the HLM model.