VON E. NEBBITT, KATHY SANDERS-PHILLIPS, AND LISA R. RAWLINGSPUBLIC HOUSING CAN BE BROADLY defined as government-owned housing for low-income individuals and families (HUDUSER 2009). With the exception of the Mutual Ownership Defense Housing Division of the Federal Works Agency, the slum clearance polices and American’s legacy of residential segregation created the context for location-based public housing neighborhoods that exists in the United States today (Goetz 2003). Slum clearance ensured that public housing neighborhoods would be built in areas of extreme poverty, and residential segregation ensured the overrepresentation of nonwhite families in public housing. Currently, 70 percent of the public housing neighborhoods in metropolitan areas are located in poor African American communities (HUDUSER 2009). Consequently, public housing communities are now isolated pockets of concentrated poverty primarily occupied by nonwhite families and often marked by an array of social ills. For example, in the District of Columbia, homicide rates are 10 times higher and assault rates are 47 times higher in public housing compared with non–public housing neighborhoods (U.S. Census Bureau 2000). Given the high rates of violence, crime, and drug use in many public housing developments, scholars have been paying increased attention to the effects of growing up in these communities on child and adolescent development.
Despite this increased interest in minority youth in public housing neighborhoods, there are no theoretical models that examine the causal linkages between living in urban public housing neighborhoods and the developmental trajectories of minority youth. The limited research on adolescents living in public housing has not used a unifying framework that captures the unique aspects of life in urban public housing neighborhoods. This gap in the literature has contributed to a fragmented approach to assessing how various domains influence child and adolescent development within the specific context of urban public housing neighborhoods. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce an integrated approach that combines various perspectives in a unified approach to understand the complex phenomenon of growing up in our nation’s only publicly owned, and in some cases managed, residential communities.
ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT
As discussed in chapter 2, research and theory focusing on the impact of neighborhood characteristics on child and adolescent development date back to the turn of the twentieth century. However, Bronfenbrenner (1979) was one of the first theorists to emphasize the importance of understanding child development in relation to the environment in which a child lives and develops. He posited that the environment in which a child lives is composed of a number of layers that have interlocking/transactional effects on the child. To fully understand a child’s mental and physical development, we must assess relationships between a child and his or her immediate environment, as well as the influence of the larger social environment on the child, the family, and the immediate environment (Dubow, Edwards, & Ippolito 1997; Simons et al. 2002, 2006). Similarly, ontogeny constructs and hypothesized causal linkages related to developmental trajectories must incorporate an understanding of interactions between social and environmental factors in youth (Barrow et al. 2007).
Others have argued that the impact of the urban environment must be included in any theoretical discussion of the development of minority children (Burton, Allison, & Obeidallah 1995; Chestang 1976; Coll et al. 1996; Dubow, Edwards, & Ippolito 1997; Luthar & Burack 2000; McHale 1995; McLoyd 2004; Spencer 1990). Scholars have concluded that living in low-income segregated urban environments, such as public housing neighborhoods, represents a unique and unshared experience that may significantly influence developmental outcomes of African American and, increasingly, Latino children in the United States (Barrow et al. 2007; Brooks-Gunn et al. 1993; Coll et al. 1996; Jarrett 2003; Nebbitt & Lombe 2007; Sanders-Phillips 2009). This literature brings to bold relief the critical need to develop a theoretical framework that identifies the features of the environment that directly and indirectly affect youth outcomes and that hypothesizes the dynamics undergirding health and development among minority youth living in urban public housing developments.
It should be reiterated that research has examined the influences of community violence on the symptoms and behavior of youth living in public housing (Bolland et al. 2001; DuRant et al. 2000, Li, Stanton, & Feigelman 1999; Nebbitt 2009). However, a unifying framework that identifies and explains the unique aspects of life in urban public housing neighborhoods is lacking. Traditional models of urban minority child development have formed the foundation of this work, yet they pose their own limitations.
Traditional Models of Child Development for Urban Minority Youth
Historically, theories designed to explicate the developmental trajectories of minority youth and explain ethnic differences in developmental outcomes of youth in general have focused primarily on individual or sociocultural factors. While some scholars (Herrnstein 1971; Herrnstein & Murray 1994; Jensen 1969; Shuey 1966) have focused on genetic factors (e.g., innate differences in physical, intellectual, and psychological development across races) to explain ethnic differences in child development, other scholars (Moynihan 1965; Sears 1975; Senn 1975; Wilson 1987) have argued that sociocultural factors, such as poverty or social isolation, deprive minority youth of the benefits and advantages of white, middle-class children and result in developmental difficulties. These perspectives have contributed to a body of literature that portrays urban minority youth, particularly African Americans, as “deviant” relative to the dominant group (i.e., white middle-class; Luthar & Burack 2000; Barrow et al. 2007).
Notwithstanding the many urban minority youth who become well-functioning citizens (Dubow, Edwards, & Ippolito 1997), these perspectives have contributed little to the understanding of how urban neighborhoods, such as public housing developments, positively influence the health and development of minority youth (Luthar & Burack 2000; Shaffer, Forehand, & Kotchick 2002). Consequently, more is known about the psychopathologies in urban minority youth, particularly African Americans, than about their resilient functioning and how to foster optimal development despite their environmental challenges (Barrow et al. 2007; Zimmerman, Ramirez-Valles, & Maton 1999).
Another salient feature of traditional perspectives on child and adolescent development is that adolescence is conceptualized as an extension of childhood; that is, adolescence serves as a “moratorium” before adolescents are expected to take on adult responsibilities (Luthar & Burack 2000). Although adolescence may serve as a hiatus for middle-income nonminority adolescents, numerous complications arise when attempting to apply this assumption to low-income minority adolescents, particularly African American youth living in public housing neighborhoods (Luthar & Burack 2000).
Due to factors such as high rates of poverty, the number of single-parent households, and the need for adolescents to contribute to household maintenance, minority adolescents living in public housing communities are often required to assume adult roles (i.e., “adultify”) and do not experience adolescence as a transitional phase (Jarrett & Jefferson 2004). The concepts of trophic cascading and inorganic communities, both outlined in the introduction, may help one to understand this phenomenon. In nature, trophic cascading simply refers to downward domination (Strong 1992). In natural ecological systems, trophic cascading occurs when top feeders are removed from the system, leaving an ecological niche to be occupied by low-level feeders (Strong 1992). Trophic cascading occurs in human ecological systems when top-status members (adults and seniors) in the social ecology of community are not available to regulate, and in some cases suppress, the behavior of lower status members (children and adolescents), and top-status members are unavailable to occupy important ecological niches in the family and the community. The probability of trophic cascading increases in inorganic communities due to the near absence of employed adult males and a vanishing senior population.
It is likely that the downward extension of adult responsibilities to adolescence (i.e., adultification) is the process of trophic cascading within inorganic public housing communities. Evidence of these effects has been reported by others (Burton, Allison, & Obeidallah 1995; Jarrett 1999, 2003). The reality of life in public housing neighborhoods influences the developmental trajectories of minority youth living in these communities. It is also likely that notions of psychopathology and health-risk behavior among youth in these communities are overestimated due to a lack of awareness or consideration of adaptations and contextual norms and expectations (Batey 1999; Cooley & Boyce 2004; Cross 1998; Klevens & Roca 1999; Neal-Barnett 2004; Sharma & Sharma 1999; Tyler et al. 1992).
Theoretical Foundations for an Integrated Model
The literature discussed thus far underscores the critical need for theories that explicate youth development in urban communities such as public housing. These theories should acknowledge and address the influence of contextual factors on child and adolescent development, health, and well-being. This is particularly important given the history of isolation and concentrated poverty in public housing neighborhoods.
To contribute to this discussion, we have developed an Integrated Model of Adolescent Development in Public Housing Neighborhoods. This model is intended to (1) contribute to the current gaps in theoretical knowledge on families in public housing, (2) offer alternative explanations for the multifinality experienced by youth in public housing, and (3) connect the fragmented approaches to understanding the complexities of adolescent adaptations and development in this unique context.
This model has been informed by four existing theoretical perspectives: the psychology of place, the ecological perspective, the protective and vulnerability perspective, and the developmental competences in the minority child model. The psychology of place and related work describes the ways in which people are connected to places and the impact of these connections on well-being (Fullilove 1996, 2005). Underlying this body of work are two assumptions: people strive for a sense of belonging to a place (Fullilove 1996, 2005), and homeostasis of the environment supports and influences the homeostasis of the individual (Bowlby 1973). According to Fullilove, it provides “the external realities within which people shape their existence” (1996:1518). It also defines what is normal for individuals and the communities in which they reside.
As discussed in previous sections, scholars have empirically established this link between environmental factors and individual outcomes; however, these perspectives do not offer explanations of the processes by which the environment shapes individuals. Three overlapping processes are theorized to connect individuals with certain places: familiarity, attachment, and identity. Familiarity with places promotes “a sense of continuity and equilibrium in the lives of residents and shapes how people secure food, where people find shelter, where they seek comfort and refuge, and who they can trust” (Rawlings 2007: 148). Loss of a sense of familiarity may result in disorientation and confusion. Attachment to one’s home, because of the connotations of safety and refuge, provides a sense of “ontological security” (Dupuis & Thorns 1996). Low and Altman (1992) contended that attachments to home expand concentrically outward from the home to include community, neighborhood, and city. Loss of these attachments may be experienced as nostalgia or depression. Place identity is a component of individual identity formation. The social status of the place may be ascribed to the individual. Fullilove (1996) further contended that having a place that is not esteemed by others may cause individual feelings of alienation. The research on psychology of place and belonging begins to establish the theoretical foundation and holds particular salience for the discussion of African American youth in urban public housing.
Ecological Transaction Perspective
The ecological transaction perspective argues that development in youth must be examined and understood in the child’s context because different environments will elicit different reactions from the same youth (Bronfenbrenner 1977; Cicchetti & Lynch 1993; Sameroff & Chandler 1975). Similarly, the environment cannot be assessed apart from the youth because different youth will elicit different reactions from the same environment (Dubow, Edwards, & Ippolito 1997). This approach contends that neither normal nor pathological development results solely from a biological process or a type of environmental reinforcement (Cicchetti 1987, 1989). In addition, linear chains of causality are rare, and the process of human growth takes a more circuitous course. Discontinuity, rather than continuity, is expected between developmental stages (Mrug, Loosier, & Windle 2008; Sameroff & Chandler 1975).
The protective and vulnerability perspective posits that salient protective and vulnerable factors affect at-risk adolescents at the community, family, and individual levels (Garmezy 1985; Rutter 1987; Werner & Smith 1982, 1992). Protective factors can be internal and external resources that modify or buffer the impact of risk factors and influence a child’s reaction to environmental stressors that could possibly lead to maladaptive outcomes (Masten 1987; Werner & Smith 1992). Vulnerability factors exacerbate risk factors and can include gender, age, and family socioeconomic status (Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker 2000; Rutter 1987). Protective and vulnerability approaches are most useful when exploring the interactions between risk and protective factors (Smokowski et al. 2004).
The developmental competences in the minority child model (Coll et al. 1996) argues that the U.S. social stratification system relegates low-income minority families to racially, psychologically, and economically segregated neighborhoods. The model further postulates that to thrive and survive in these segregated neighborhoods, children and families develop an adaptive culture.
Assumptions of the Integrated Model
The Integrated Model of Adolescent Development in Public Housing Neighborhoods has six underlying assumptions. First, discriminatory housing policies result in residential segregation that isolates low-income African American and Latino families in public housing neighborhoods. Second, a public housing policy that relegates poor families to segregated neighborhoods, promotes single-income households, and does not provide adequate community and supportive service will create inorganic communities. Third, inorganic public housing communities perfect the condition for trophic cascading effects in the social ecology of public housing, leading to a unique milieu within which African American and Latino children and adolescents must adapt and adjust. Fourth, African American and Latino youth will experience dual identities from living in two worlds (public housing and mainstream) and two roles (adolescent and adult). This phenomenon, which is described as having orthogonal demands and values (Burton, Allison, & Obeidallah 1995; Fordham & Ogbu 1986; McHale 1995), will significantly influence their developmental trajectories and outcomes. Fifth, because of these community characteristics and individual challenges, African American and Latino adolescents living in public housing communities are at high risk for psychological distress (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, role confusion) and health-risk behavior (e.g., drug use, aggression; Brooks-Gunn et al. 1993; Dubow, Edwards, & Ippolito 1997). Finally, community members and families will develop adaptive strategies within inorganic communities in an effort to promote adolescent well-being and foster resilience in children (Burton, Allison, & Obeidallah 1995; Fordham & Ogbu 1986; McHale 1995).
AN INTEGRATED MODEL OF ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT IN PUBLIC HOUSING NEIGHBORHOODS
A schematic of our Integrated Model of Adolescent Development in Public Housing Neighborhoods is presented in figure 3.1. The Integrated Model of Adolescent Development in Public Housing Neighborhoods describes the major aspects of life in public neighborhoods that may operate in the distal and proximal domains to influence the development of youth living in these communities. Our model is guided by existing theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence that have identified factors and mechanisms by which place, context, and environment affect child development. Knowledge of the contextual/environmental determinants of development among minority adolescents living in public housing is essential to the development of rigorous research protocols and successful preventative interventions in public housing neighborhoods.
FIGURE 3.1 The Integrated Model on Adolescent Development in Public Housing Neighborhoods. Curved arrows indicate interaction effects, arrows indicate direct effects, and dotted-line arrows indicate moderation/mediation effects. PH, public housing.
Distal Factors That Influence Child Outcomes
The first factors identified in the model are distal-level factors. They operate at the level of the larger social system and society. The specific system factors that are hypothesized to influence child outcomes in public housing include the institutions (e.g., governments, banks) and policies (e.g., legal systems of racial segregation) that affect the quality of life, particularly housing and schooling, for low-income urban families. Therefore, the first section of the model describes the distal-level factors that governed the creation of public housing, which isolate these communities from other neighborhoods in the United States. Emphasis is placed on the social and legal policies that restricted specific income and racial/ethnic groups (e.g., people living in poverty, African Americans, Latinos) to segregated housing. These policies fostered the social isolation of specific groups, as well as the geographic isolation of these groups within urban areas (de Leeuw et al. 2008; Solomon 2004). For example, public housing has historically been located in poor and older urban neighborhoods occupied by poor minorities (Goetz 2003). Most public housing built from the 1950s to the 1970s was located in poor, racially segregated communities (Solomon 2004). Patterns of residential segregation in public housing reflect the social norms of the time that they were built (Goetz 2003).
A Housing and Urban Development report on the racial composition of location-based public housing found that, despite the slow easing of racial segregation in public housing, most African American public housing residents continue to live in disproportionately minority neighborhoods (Goaring, Kamely, & Richards 1994). These communities are also differentiated by income; that is, the majority of these housing developments are located in poverty-concentrated neighborhoods. Accordingly, families in public housing experience economic, political, and social isolation that contributes to ethnic differences in access to societal resources and sources of power in the larger society (de Leeuw et al. 2008; Solomon 2004). In turn, these differences in social power and access are significant correlates of ethnic differences in mental and physical health outcomes as well as risk behaviors such as drug use, unsafe sexual practices, and aggression in youth (Sanders-Phillips 2009).
The impact of residential segregation and social position factors on child development are mediated through the mechanisms of discrimination, stigmatization, and isolation (Coll et al. 1996). Discrimination, stigmatization, and isolation foster the low-resource and fragmented environments that currently exist in communities such as public housing (Sanders-Phillips 2009; Coll et al. 1996). The isolation that exists in public housing communities occurs across several dimensions, including residential, economic, social, and psychological (Coll et al. 1996). Similarly, the impoverishment that characterizes these communities is also multifaceted, involving restrictions of household incomes, the lack of an opportunity structure (e.g., employment options), the near absence of healthy life options (e.g., no large supermarkets, little green space such as parks), and the near absence of adult males. For example, common aspects of life in public housing (e.g., income restrictions, mostly single-female–headed households) not only result in stigmatization for youth and families but also reinforce perceptions of isolation because these aspects of life are generally unshared by nonminority youth not living in public housing. Collectively, these aspects of life—and the resulting isolation and impoverishment—create inorganic communities. It is the inorganic nature of public housing neighborhood environments that creates the unique conditions that significantly influence psychological functioning and behavior in youth, as well as their interactions with family members and other community residents.
Proximal Factors and Processes Influencing Adolescent Development
The next section of our model describes the potential effects of distal factors on public housing communities, families, and adolescents in these developments. The larger social environments in which a child lives indirectly affect their functioning and development by creating family stress and providing illegitimate opportunity structures for youth groups (Berk 2000; Cloward & Ohlin 1960). Other connections between the structures of the child’s immediate environment may influence factors such as their peer associations, the behavior of their parents, and cultural norms in other community residents. For example, due to isolation and low financial resources, families in low-income public housing are likely to form fictive kinship networks and stronger extended family ties in an effort to develop sound social support networks. Adults who are not biological relatives may be identified as family members to assist with childrearing and to provide emotional support for family members (Guttman 1976). Several studies have documented the existence of extensive kin networks within African American communities (Aschenbrenner 1973; Martin & Martin 1978; McAdoo 1981; Stack 1974). This body of literature highlights the importance of these networks as sources of informal social support (Hatchett, Corcoran, & Jackson 1991; Taylor 1988; Taylor & Chatters 1991; Stack 1974).
Research suggests that fictive kin relationships are an integral component of these networks (Anderson 1976; Aschenbrenner 1973; Burton, Allison, & Obeidallah 1995; Jarrett 2003; Martin & Martin 1985; Stack 1974; Tatum 1987), and extending kinship status to nonbiological community members is a means to strengthen one's social network. Persons who are designated as fictive kin are unrelated by either blood or marriage, but they regard one another in kinship terms (Sussman 1976). They employ a standard cultural typology (i.e., likened to blood ties, sociolegal or marriage ties, and parenthood) to describe these non-kin associations (Rubenstein et al. 1991). Accordingly, rights and statuses usually associated with biological family members are bestowed upon individuals in the fictive kinship network. With the designation of fictive kinship comes both respect and responsibility; fictive kin are expected to participate in the duties of the extended family (Chatters, Taylor, & Jayakody 1994).
Our integrated model posits that this community adaptation may serve as a buffer against some of the negative elements in public housing developments, which may foster pro-adaptive responses in youth, despite living in challenging environmental conditions (Dubow, Edwards, & Ipplito 1997; Egeland, Carlson, & Stroufe 1993; Evans et al. 2005; Garmezy, Masten, Tellegen, 1984; Mrug, Loosier, & Windle 2008). Barrow et al. (2007) have argued that the availability of formal and informal social supports is critical to youth development because these social systems provide the resources and support that serve as foundations for positive youth development. Despite the importance of fictive ties and the extended family networks of African Americans, little is known about fictive kin generally. Quantitative evidence as to the general pervasiveness of these ties is missing from the empirical literature (Chatters, Taylor, & Jayakody 1994).
In addition to forming extended support networks, public housing communities are likely to develop negative adaptations given larger distal factors. For example, the policy of means testing creates scarcity in monetary resources and encourages disproportionate numbers of low-income younger single mothers with children. In addition to limited defensible space (Newman 1972), this fact increases the likelihood that public housing neighborhoods may become epicenters of illegitimate opportunities and alternative markets, such as a depository for stolen goods and elaborate drug distribution networks (Elliott et al. 1996). The presence of illegitimate opportunity structures and alternative market activities increases community violence and incivility that, in turn, contribute to domestic conflict and parental stress as families struggle to cope with these nefarious activities in their neighborhood (Elliott et al. 1996). For example, public housing may also have abandoned buildings and other indefensible spaces where violence is likely to occur, and youth who spend time in these settings may be more vulnerable to antisocial and other unhealthy behaviors (Felson 2002; Newman 1972). This volatile situation is intensified because of trophic cascading among young males in alternative markets (e.g., drug markets) within public housing developments. Due to trophic cascading, younger males are assuming leadership roles in neighborhood drug markets. Hagan (1994) reported that younger males who lead drug markets are more likely to use violence as a means to resolve conflict compared to older males. Furthermore, young leaders of these illegitimate and alternative markets reward youths’ involvement and create support networks that encourage, or at least tolerate, involvement in other health-risk behavior (e.g., perpetration of violence, drug use, promiscuity, carrying weapons), which further increases domestic (parent–child) conflict (Elliott et al. 1996).
Families are likely to respond to the violence as well as the presence of illegitimate and alternative markets by increasing the monitoring of their adolescent offspring (Hill & Jones 1997). However, these illegitimate markets provide an opportunity structure for delinquent and other antisocial behaviors for youth. The impoverished conditions of most public housing neighborhoods and the presence of alternative markets decrease prospects of a promising future for youth and increase their fears of being victimized or harmed (Dubow et al. 2001). These neighborhood conditions also provide environmental niches (indefensible space and vacant apartments) and illegitimate opportunities (e.g., drug sales, organized gangs), which may increase youth involvement in antisocial and health-risk behavior (Barrow et al. 2007; Felson 2002; Wiehe et al. 2008).
Youth Outcomes
Through their day-to-day interactions with family members, community residents, and institutions in the neighborhood, youth in public housing also learn to adapt to the normative standards of life in inorganic communities. Youth responses to life in these settings may be pro-adaptive or maladaptive and often require a set of values, attitudes, and behaviors that differ significantly from mainstream values, attitudes, and behaviors (MacLeod 1995).
For example, youth adaptations to economic deprivation have been well documented (Jarrett 1990, 2000; MacLeod 1995; Sullivan 1989; Williams & Kornblum 1985). Burton (1991) reported that children in these communities often develop an adult, take-charge attitude, as evident in 8-year-old female caregivers. Stack and Burton (1993) found that this tendency to take on adult responsibilities can be both expected and rewarded, as evidenced by attitudes that a youth’s commitment to the care of an elderly relative is a successful developmental milestone. Jarrett (2003) referred to this downward extension of adult roles as “adultification.”
From a traditional conceptualization of adolescence (e.g., an extension of childhood and moratorium before adult responsibilities), the behaviors exhibited by the youth living in public housing neighborhoods are considered to be abnormal or atypical developmental trajectories for adolescence. However, due to individual and family adaptations to conditions in public housing environments, these behaviors are considered normative. Unfortunately, few quantitative studies have examined how the acquisition of adult roles and responsibilities during adolescence (i.e., adultification) is related to adolescents’ symptoms and behavior among public housing youth (see Nebbitt & Lombe 2010, for exceptions). There may be both positive and negative consequences of adultification for youth.
There are also psychological costs associated with life in conditions of poverty, isolation, and potential danger. Youth in public housing may conclude that the world is not fair and develop psychological distress responses (e.g., anger, depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress) that are related to aggression, drug use, and association with antisocial peers as well as difficulties in emotion regulation, which is critical to the display of empathy (Daiute & Fine 2003; Kuther & Wallace 2003). These experiences may also influence youth’s conceptions of justice, care, and empathy, which are related to subsequent aggression and violent behaviors (Kuther & Wallace 2003). If youth matriculate into a deviant peer group or into the alternative market enterprise, the likelihood of significant mental health problems, aggression, and poor developmental outcomes increases (Barrow et al. 2007; Brooks-Gunn et al. 1993; Dubow, Edwards, & Ippolito 1997; Dubow et al. 2001). Comorbid antisocial behavior and mental health problems in urban African American adolescents is well documented in the empirical literature (Neighbors, Kempton, & Forehand 1992; Ulzen and Hamilton 1998).
It is important to acknowledge that adolescents are not merely passive recipients of their environmental experiences. They contribute to their own socialization via their attitudes toward deviance, sense of social responsibility, and self-efficacy. They positively influence family processes via their contributions of time with siblings, household chores, and money, whereas they negatively influence family functioning through their involvement in delinquent behavior and substance use. They also affect neighborhood characteristics by their civic engagement or their involvement in alternative markets within public housing (Barrow et al. 2007; Dubow, Edwards, & Ippolito 1997; Dubow et al. 2001).
It is through these ecological transactional processes that adolescent development emerges (Barrow et al. 2007). We posit that transactions between contradicting elements (risk and protective factors) in densely populated public housing neighborhoods may account for the heterogeneity in outcomes for youth from these neighborhoods (Dubow, Edwards, & Ippolito 1997).
SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR INTERVENTION
Based on existing evidence, one should expect that the development of youth in public housing neighborhoods would differ from adolescent development in non–public housing neighborhoods. Several elements of public housing neighborhoods (e.g., policies that restrict incomes and discourage two-parent households, discrimination, stigmatization, isolation, residential segregation, lower social positions, pockets of illegal activity and incivility) provide experiences that are unshared by non–public housing neighborhood youth. Transactions among these unique elements and subsequent adaptations result in pro-adaptive or maladaptive functioning (or combinations of both), which are linked to more distant factors, such as perceptions on how to help the poor (means-tested public assistance), attitudes towards racial minorities (racism), and geographical segregation based on socioeconomic status and race or both (slums).
Despite the challenges present in public housing communities, there is increasing evidence that resiliency can be fostered in youth in these neighborhoods. However, theory suggests that, for youth to thrive in these settings, there must be a concentration of protective factors that outweigh the risk factors to which these youth are exposed. For example, the accumulation of risk model posits that children at greatest risk for poor developmental outcomes are those exposed to multiple forms of stress concurrently (Finkelhor et al. 2007; Garbarino 2001). Youth may be capable of coping with low levels of risk; however, once the accumulation reaches a certain threshold, there must be a major concentration of opportunity and other protective factors or processes to prevent serious harm (Garbarino 2001; Perry et al. 1995; Sameroff et al. 1987). Thus, youth in public housing may be at especially high risk for poor outcomes.
To address these issues, the Integrated Model of Adolescent Development in Public Housing Neighborhoods is premised on existing findings regarding resiliency in youth growing up in conditions of poverty and other barriers (Barrow et al. 2007; Egeland, Carlson, & Stroufe 1993; Evans et al. 2005; Garmezy, Masten, & Tellegen 1984; Mrug, Loosier, & Windle 2008). In sum, our model suggests the following:
1. Maladaptive functioning is not the ineluctable result of exposure to risk factors.
2. Protective factors buffer the negative effects of risk exposure and contribute to pro-adaptive functioning despite the presence of risk.
3. The closer the protective factors, the lower the probability that risk exposure will result in maladaptive functioning.
4. No one protective factor is a panacea across all behavioral domains; rather, protective factors are domain-specific.
5. Within public housing neighborhoods, linear development is rare. The process of adolescent development takes a more circuitous course. Discontinuity, rather than continuity, is expected between developmental stages.
6. The impact on risk and protective factors on adolescents’ symptoms and behavior will depend on the gender of the youth.
The chapters in part 2 will test parts of the integrated model using a sample of African American adolescents living in public housing neighborhoods in four large U.S. cities. The subsequent empirical chapters focus on different aspects of our integrated model. Some chapters examine internalizing symptoms, whereas others examine externalizing behaviors. However, all empirical chapters incorporate selected variables from promoting and inhibiting aspects of public housing neighborhoods. Some empirical chapters also examine how internalizing symptoms interact with inhibiting and promoting aspects of public housing neighborhood to affect externalizing behavior.
