Neighborhood context and the development of African-American children

The purposes of this study were twofold: (1) to develop a measure of parental perceptions of neighborhood context that assesses four dimensions of neighborhood life (i.e., social embeddedness, sense of community, satisfaction with neighborhood, and perceived crime); and (2) to examine individual-level variations in cognitive and social development of African American preschool children as a function of both perceived (i.e., maternal perceptions) and observed neighborhood factors (i.e., census tract variables). Findings from confirmatory factor analyses supported the hypothesized four-factor structure of the parental perceptions scale and provided evidence for convergent validity. Longitudinal (i.e., child age 3 to age 5) and cross-sectional (i.e., child age 5) models tested direct and indirect effects of neighborhood characteristics on children's cognitive and social development and explored pathways by which family (i.e., maternal perceptions of neighborhood, parenting style) and community characteristics (i.e., objective ratings of neighborhood) relate to child development. No significant effects of neighborhood structure on children's development were found. However, a significant negative relationship between perceived neighborhood at age 3 and social development at age 5 was found. Findings from cross-sectional models indicated a significant positive association between parental warmth and social development at age 5. Overall, findings suggest that proximal family factors are crucial for children's development during the preschool years.