Residential Poverty, School Poverty, and Adolescent Problem Behaviors: An Activity Space Perspective
Open Access
Author:
Fry, Sarah V
Graduate Program:
Criminology
Degree:
Master of Arts
Document Type:
Master Thesis
Date of Defense:
July 31, 2015
Committee Members:
Corina Graif, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Keywords:
neighborhoods activity spaces ecological delinquency schools school neighborhoods poverty problem behavior
Abstract:
Increasingly, researchers interested in ecological and neighborhood effects are looking outside of subjects’ residential areas to their non-residential neighborhoods of routine activity (sometimes called “activity spaces”). Individuals spend much of their daily lives outside of their home neighborhoods, yet little work has been done on how important non-residential neighborhoods may condition the impacts of residential neighborhood characteristics on individual behavior. The Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (L.A. FANS) gathered information on sampled children’s misconduct (lying, breaking things, bullying others) and school problem behaviors (school suspension, being disobedient in school, and having problems with teachers) as well as their school and home addresses. The present study examines the associations between tract-level poverty in respondents’ home and school neighborhoods and their problem behaviors. After controlling for respondent gender, age, race/ethnicity, generational status, and family income, I find that residential tract poverty is predictive of both scales, while school tract poverty is predictive of only the school problems scale. In addition, school tract poverty partially mediated the association between residential poverty and school problems. This illustrates how disorganizing factors can be important for non-residential settings as well as respondents’ residential areas.
