Family Neighborhood Research Articles

Promising Programs to Serve Low-Income Families in Poverty Neighborhoods

This review of promising programs to address the challenges facing low-income families living in distressed neighborhoods reveals three key themes: (1) Earnings and asset development programs are used to increase the economic self-sufficiency of low-income families and include: place-based employment programs, a focus on good jobs, the use of work incentives, programs that promote banking, car and home ownership, and the use of the Earned Income Tax Credit; (2) Family strengthening programs are used to improve health and educational outcomes, as well as link families to needed support and benefit services and include: nurse home visitation, parenting education, early childhood educational programs, and facilitating the receipt of support services; and (3) Neighborhood strengthening programs are used to improve features of the neighborhood, collaboration among service providers, and resident involvement in neighborhood affairs and include: the use of community development corporations, comprehensive community initiatives and community organizing strategies.

Promising Practices for Meeting the Multiple Needs of Low-Income Families in Poverty Neighborhoods

This review of promising practices for meeting the multiple needs of low-income families in poverty neighborhoods reveals four main themes: (1) The challenges facing low-income families living in poverty neighborhoods are not discrete-but are multidimensional; (2) Integrated family and neighborhood strengthening practices, such as the Making Connections (MC) Initiative (funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation), and the Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ), represent innovative strategies to address the multifaceted issues facing low-income families living in poverty neighborhoods; (3) The organizational structure, challenges and successes of the MC and HCZ provide insight into the nature of integrated family and neighborhood approaches; (4) A framework for the design of an integrated family and neighborhood program includes a focus on internal organizational processes, neighborhood processes, and external processes. This framework can assist social service agencies in moving their services toward a more integrated family and neighborhood approach.

“Broken Windows”: Frumkin Responds

I thank Melendez for his careful reading of my editorial and for raising the very reasonable question of whether “broken windows”—an indicator of neighborhood squalor—are causally related to poor health. Clearly the relationship between features of the built environment—including signs of degradation and outcomes such as behavior and health—is very complex. Many of the causal arrows are probably bidirectional. True clinical trials, which might help disentangle and clarify specific causal pathways, are difficult to carry out, as Melendez points out. However, at least two interesting studies approximate a trial and are informative. First, in the mid-1990s, former New York City police commissioner William Bratton implemented a “fixing broken windows” approach—enforcing nuisance laws, cleaning up graffiti, and so on. This approach was credited with a substantial subsequent decrease in street crime (Bratton 1995; Bratton and Knowlner 1998; Kelling and Coles 1996). Second, the Moving to Opportunity trial in the mid-1990s enrolled over 3,000 families in high-poverty neighborhoods of Baltimore, Maryland; Boston, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois; Los Angeles, California; and New York, New York. They were randomly assigned to receive housing vouchers usable in low-poverty neighborhoods or to remain where they were. Although the results were variable, families moving to low-poverty neighborhoods did experience improvements in several aspects of physical and mental health (Orr et al. 2003). So while these effects are not simple, there is some evidence that less-chaotic, disordered environments may predict better health. Perhaps the fundamental issue is that in poor communities, environmental factors and social factors are inextricably intertwined. Our efforts to understand their effects on health, and to improve people’s lives, need to focus on the root causes of both poverty and environmental hazards.

Does Socio-demographic Status Influence the Effect of Pollens and Molds on Hospitalization for Asthma? Results from a Time-series Study in 10 Canadian Cities

Social status influences asthma morbidity but the mechanisms are not well understood. To determine if sociodemographics influence the susceptibility to ambient aeroallergens, we determined the association between daily hospitalizations for asthma and daily concentrations of ambient pollens and molds in 10 large Canadian cities. Daily time-series analyses were performed and results were adjusted for day of the week, temperature, barometric pressure, relative humidity, ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide. Results were then stratified by age, gender, and neighborhood family education and income. There appeared to be age and gender interactions in the relation between aeroallergens and asthma. An increase in basidiomycetes equivalent to its mean value, about 300/m3, increased asthma admissions for younger males (under 13 years of age) by 9.3% (95% CI, 4.8%, 13.8%) vs. 4.2% (95% CI, - 0.1%, 8.5%) for older males. The reverse was true among females with increased effect in the older age group: 2.3% (95% CI, 1.2%, 5.8%) in those under 13 years vs. 7.1% (95% CI, 4.1%, 10.1%) for older females. Associations were seen between aeroallergens and asthma hospitalization in the lowest but not the highest education group. Our results suggest that younger males and those within less educated families may be more vulnerable to aeroallergens as reflected by hospitalization for asthma.

Native Daughter: Home, Segregation, and Mental Maps

ABSTRACTNarrow mental maps, those that present a blinkered, overly simplified view of reality, are believed to play a role in the development of prejudicial attitudes and behaviors. But what about when such maps happen to be held by members of disadvantaged groups? This paper examines the mental map of “home” held by an African-American girl who lived in a racially segregated community outside Chicago during the Depression. It finds that her map was not a simple, single construct, but consisted of overlapping, interpenetrating landscapes of sights, sounds, places, and feelings. Perhaps surprisingly, while her map was detailed and complete, it did not acknowledge the segregated nature of her family's neighborhood. The article suggests that her map served a defensive purpose, protecting her from the indignities of being a conscious victim of discrimination. It concludes that while narrow maps might indeed feed the prejudices of members of dominant groups, they may operate as instruments of empowerment among the oppressed.

Traps and Stepping Stones: Neighborhood Dynamics and Family Well-Being

Studies of context effects - for example, effects of neighborhoods, schools, kinship units, or all of these - on human behavior and well-being now span the social sciences and pose some of the most daunting analytic problems faced by social researchers. Understanding such effects is particularly important as metropolitan areas in the U.S. face continued economic restructuring and large-scale demographic change from migration, aging, and other forces, and as policymakers and researchers seek to understand and respond to increased economic inequality and its consequences. To date, however, almost all relevant research has either studied processes of neighborhood change (hinting at possible effects on individuals and families) or of human development (including possible effects of neighborhood characteristics). This theoretical essay argues strongly for integrating these largely separate enterprises and outlines basic frameworks for doing so. I discuss three dynamic functions - neighborhood change, individual exposure to risks and resources, and life course transitions - that contribute to neighborhood effects and use simple Markovian risk models to illustrate the importance of housing choices and outcomes over time. Neighborhoods may be thought of as traps, stepping stones, or springboards for families navigating the life course, not just stable, upgrading, or declining (in traditional terms). As such, efforts to leverage neighborhood context to improve child and family well-being must consider how housing mobility relates to other family strategies for getting by, getting ahead, and propelling the next generation.

Socially isolated? How parents and neighbourhood adults influence youth behaviour in disadvantaged communities

William Julius Wilson’s model of adult joblessness, community disorganization and their effects on youth problem behaviour de-emphasizes the range in children’s outcomes across socially disorganized communities, and says little about the factors that influence this variation. It also does not address the processes by which family structure and relationships affect the well-being of African-American and poor youth. My work is part of a larger research agenda that has begun to address these issues by focusing on the differential rates of sexual activity among youth living in disadvantaged environments, and developing models to explain this variation. This work suggests that units of socially cohesive, stable adults exist among the social networks of successful children and families in poor neighbourhoods. It also points to the existence and functioning of alternative two-parent family structures and offers hypotheses for how family environment interacts with neighbourhood context to influence youth behaviour.

A Local Doubling Formula for the Harmonic Measure Associated with Subelliptic Operators and Applications†

Let X={ X1, …, Xp} be a family of smooth vector fields in R n, and let Ω⊂R n be a connected open subset with sufficiently regular boundary ∂Ω. Assume X satisfies the so-called Hörmander rank condition, i.e., suppose the rank of the Lie algebra generated by X equals n at any point of a neighborhood of . In this paper we prove a doubling property, with respect to a suitable family of neighborhoods of a boundary point, of the harmonic measure associated with the subelliptic operator . As a consequence, we derive a boundary Harnack principle for positive weak solutions of . †To Professor Jean-Michel Bony on his 60th birthday

Sexual Intercourse and Pregnancy Among African American Girls in High‐Poverty Neighborhoods: The Role of Family and Perceived Community Environment

Data are used from a random sample of African American families in impoverished Chicago neighborhoods to address two questions: How well do modeling, supervision, and marital transition hypotheses explain the relationship between family structure and early sexual debut and pregnancy for disadvantaged Black female adolescents? Do higher levels of social support from parents and neighborhood adults decrease the risk of sexual activity for youth in poor communities? Support for each hypothesis is contingent upon the family transition experienced and specific sexual outcome examined. Living in any type of married household reduces the risk of sexual debut and pregnancy. Stronger parent‐child relationships are associated with delayed sexual onset, whereas the risk of pregnancy is reduced when adolescents report more working adults in their social networks.

The Firm. Organizational Logic and Criminal Culture on a Shifting Terrain

This paper will seek to extend arguments made elsewhere concerning changes in criminal fraternities (Hobbs 1995, 1997a), by focusing upon the connections between criminal culture and the specific political economy of a locale. It argues that within serious crime networks, tendencies found in the organization of legitimate labour are reflected (Hobbs 1997a, Ruggiero 1995), and that as trade within and between criminal coalitions involves the generation and nurturing of local interests, one of the primary structures upon which organized urban crime is based, is the traditional neighbourhood family firm.

Community Language Resources in Dual Language Schooling

This ethnographic case study was concerned with the role of comniunity-based, minority-language resources in dual language schooling, and their influence on the use of Spanish by children from English-speaking and Spanish-speaking homes. Integrating theory from the fields of language planning, language revitalization, community participation, and funds of knowledge, the study triangulated data from participant observation in classrooms; interviews with educators, parents, and community members; and document and archival analysis. Examination of minority-language use at an established, highly regarded dual language school and of the shiftingpatterns oflanguage dominance in the Mexican American neighborhood surrounding it revealed that the minority-language resources most immediately available—held by fluent bilingual elders and recent immigrants from Mexico—were less likely to be incorporated into planned curriculum than the knowledge and experiences of majority-language parents and elite bilinguals. This finding is attributed to the social distance between educators and neighborhood families, the ambivalence of Mexican American parents and school staff toward the use of non-standard varieties of Spanish in schooling, and the need for greater awareness of processes oflanguage shift and loss. Implications for dual language practice and further research are discussed.

SIGNIFICAÇÕES ATRIBUÍDAS AO COTIDIANO PELO ADOLESCENTE POBRE

A adolescência tem sido descrita e explanada a partir dos pontos de vista a-histórico e culturalmente situado. O estudo orientou-se pela vertente cultural, que admite a existência deadolescências. Visando descrever modos de vida, significações atribuidas às ocorrências do cotidiano e projetos de vida de nove adolescentes pobres, foram coletadas informações, através de entrevistas. A análise e interpretação dos relatos obtidos indicaram que os adolescentes vivem com suas famílias em bairros violentos; experienciam a violência no lar; vivem a solidão afetiva; executam trabalhos domésticos, independente do gênero; significam a escola como local de brincadeiras e de construção de amizades; rejeitam condutas que desqualificam o outro; têm projetos de vida vinculados à profissionalização e à constituição de família. Foram relatadas algumas peculiaridades como medo, insegurança, preocupação e incerteza frente ao funuro. Diferente daqueles onundos de camadas sociais mais favorecidas, ainda não estão cooptados pelos apelos consumistas.

In the Mix, Yet on the Margins: The Place of Families in Urban Neighborhood and Child Development Research

In the 1990s, the most popular theoretical and empirical research issue concerning the local ecologies of families focused on the impact of family structures (e.g., household composition) and processes (e.g., child management strategies) on the relationship between urban neighborhoods and child and adolescent development. In this article, we synthesize and critically examine the decade's prevailing literature on the topic, organizing this review into three areas: (a) the research designs of quantitative and ethnographic studies of urban neighborhoods, families, and child outcomes; (b) the conceptual approaches used in these studies; and (c) the role of structural and behavioral features of family and parenting as factors that influence the relationship between urban neighborhoods and child development in ethnically and racially diverse populations. Results suggest that although family has been center stage in the neighborhood effects research question of the decade, it has remained on the margins in terms of theoretical and methodological specificity. Recommendations for future research are also offered.

Neighborhood systems in fuzzy topological group

In this paper, we have established a necessary and sufficient condition for a family of fuzzy sets in a group to be the family of neighborhoods of the identity element of a fuzzy topological group. As an application, a mixed fuzzy topological group is constructed from two given fuzzy topological groups with the help of neighborhood systems.

Fuzzy topological space for real line generated by fuzzy metric space

Fuzzy numbers, fuzzy points are all made vaguely from real numbers. Hence there is some sort of connection among them. The real numbers metric space and the level 1 fuzzy points metric space can form two equivalent metric spaces. And the level 1 fuzzy points metric space is a subspace of fuzzy metric space. Therefore, we may extend the real numbers metric space into the fuzzy metric space. And we could have induced a fuzzy topological space for R(=(−∞,+∞)) by using the concepts of family of neighborhoods in fuzzy metric space. Also, the level 1 fuzzy points topological space is equivalent to the real numbers topological space. That is the fuzzy topological space for R is an extension of the real numbers topological space. And we did get some interesting results.

Relative remote neighborhood family and the characterizations of ultra-fuzzy compactness

In this paper, the concept of relative remote neighborhood family in L-fuzzy topological spaces is introduced, by which some characterizations of ultra-fuzzy compactness are obtained. Using this concept, we have proved Alexander Subbase Lemma and T NXOHOB Product Theorem about ultra-fuzzy compactness. Furthermore, the ultra-fuzzy paracompactness defined by strong locally finite relative remote neighborhood family is proved to be an L-good extension.

Homevisiting

A homevisiting research project can both facilitate data gathering in poor and minority communities and provide an innovative learning opportunity for direct practice students. Based on the experiences of the authors, who as teacher and MSW student visited homes in three low-income communities in New York to interview single African-American mothers and assess their children's preschool readiness, this article provides a structure for teaching and learning skills in data gathering and intervening with families in poor urban neighborhoods. It notes the benefits and obstacles of homevisiting and offers thoughts on integrating policy, research, and direct practice.

Tilings and finite energy retractions of locally symmetric spaces

Let \( \Gamma \backslash \overline{X} \) be the Borel-Serre compactifiction of an arithmetic quotient \( \Gamma \backslash X \) of a symmetric space of noncompact type. We construct natural tilings \( \Gamma \backslash \overline{X} = \coprod _P \Gamma \backslash \overline{X}_P \) (depending on a parameter b) which generalize the Arthur-Langlands partition of \( \Gamma \backslash X \). This is applied to yield a natural piecewise analytic deformation retraction of \( \Gamma \backslash \overline{X} \) onto a compact submanifold with corners \( \Gamma \backslash X _0 \subset \Gamma \backslash X \). In fact, we prove that \( \Gamma \backslash X _0 \) is a realization (under a natural piecewise analytic diffeomorphism) of \( \Gamma \backslash \overline{X} \) inside the interior \( \Gamma \backslash X \). For application to the theory of harmonic maps and geometric rigidity, we prove this retraction and diffeomorphism have finite energy except for a few low ranks examples. We also use tilings to give an explicit description of a cofinal family of neighborhoods of a face of \( \Gamma \backslash \overline{X} \), and study the dependance of tilings on the parameter b and the degeneration of tilings.

Elevated lead contamination in homes of construction workers.

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health investigators studied lead exposures among 37 families of construction workers; 22 neighborhood families with no known lead exposures were included for comparison. Workers were identified as having blood lead levels at or above 25 micrograms/dL. This article reports the levels of lead contamination on hands and interior surfaces of homes and automobiles of study participants. Results indicate that the hands of lead-exposed workers were seven times more contaminated with lead compared with control workers; no difference was found between exposed and control family members' hands. Surface lead contamination was significantly higher in automobiles driven by the lead-exposed workers; some locations, such as armrests, were 10 times more contaminated for the exposed group. High lead loadings in lead workers' automobiles were found on the driver's floor (geometric mean [GM] = 1100 micrograms/m2), driver's armrest (2000 micrograms/m2), and passenger's armrest (1200 micrograms/m2). Surface lead concentrations were significantly higher for exposed homes compared with control homes in rooms where work clothing was changed (GM = 370 versus 120 ppm; p = 0.005). While environmental sources of lead were also evaluated, study results strongly suggest that construction workers' occupational exposures together with poor hygiene practices were the primary causes of lead contamination. Requirements intended to prevent "take-home" lead exposures were reported by workers in this study to be infrequently followed by employers. These findings may be limited in representativeness since only highly exposed workers were selected from a specific geographic area. Regardless, targeted education and enforcement efforts are necessary to help ensure that preventive measures are adequately practiced throughout the construction industry.

Comprehensive Community Initiatives: Principles, Practice, and Lessons Learned

Comprehensive community initiatives strive to improve the lives of children and families in neighborhoods characterized by extreme and concentrated poverty. The initiatives used multifaceted approaches to strengthen communities and improve the provision of social and other services to children and families. Early examples include the settlement houses at the beginning of the twentieth century, the neighborhood programs of the 1930s, and the war on poverty efforts of the 1960s. Using specific examples, this article describes key features of current comprehensive community initiatives, the limitations of efforts to evaluate them, and factors contributing to their success or failure.