EXPOSURE TO COMMUNITY VIOLENCE AND AFRICAN-AMERICAN CHILDREN - A MULTIDIMENSIONAL MODEL OF RISKS AND RESOURCES

The present study seeks to investigate how various facets of social an d emotional adjustment, in a sample of urban African American children , are affected by their chronic exposure to community violence and oth er risk factors in their lives. It further explores how various resour ces in their environment sustain these children's adjustment at home a nd in school. In examining these issues, we endeavored to account for both the general and the differential effects of risk factors and reso urces on social-emotional adjustment. The fundamental problem explored in this study is the extent to which the various indicators of adjust ment are differentially impacted by a common set of risk factors, and enhanced through a common set of protective mechanisms.