Residential Neighbourhood Research Paper

Agnieszka Lewczuk Urban Sociology SSN 187-7765
Am J Community Psychol (2008) 42:39–50

The Effect of Residential Neighborhood on Child Behavior

Problems in First Grade

The article “The Effect of Residential Neighborhood on Child Behavior

Problems in First Grade” by Margaret O’Brien Caughy, Saundra Murray Nettles,

Patricia J. O’Campo focuses mostly on social and neighborhood influences on child development and on school adjustment in early elementary years. According to the

article and a study, the researchers examined weather whether neighborhood social processes

are associated with differences in child behavior problems and whether parenting behavior

mediates and/or moderates the effects of neighborhoods. Furthermore, they examine

The article

analyze a lot of studies which are about how different kids act and behave in different

neighborhoods, different family situations and different parents behaviors and disciplines, for

example; they analyze a study that explains that early experiences of harsh discipline and

harsh methods which have reached the extreme of child maltreatment is an especially potent

predictor of child externalizing behavior problems (Dodge et al. 1990; Keiley et al. 2001), or

a study where Simons and his colleagues contend that any theory linking parenting with

child outcomes is conceptually incomplete without the consideration of the effects of

community context (Simons et al. 1997). They also analyze a study where there are five

reports in the literature of studies of neighborhood effects on the behavioral and emotional

well-being of young children that include measures of neighborhood social characteristics

and if a bad neighborhood concludes to a behavioral problem (Caughy et al. 2003,

2004; Kohen et al. 2002; Silk et al. 2004; Xue et al.