Neighborhood crime and self-care: risks for aggression and lower academic performance.
This longitudinal study evaluated associations among official rates of neighborhood crime, academic performance, and aggression in a sample of 581 children in 1st-3rd grade (6.3-10.6 years old). It was hypothesized that the influence of crime depends on children's unsupervised exposure to the neighborhood context through self-care. Average weekly hours in self-care were trichotomized into low (0-3), moderate (4-9), and high (10-15). Moderate and high amounts of self-care were linked to increased aggression and decreased academic performance for children from high-crime areas (11,230 crimes per 100,000 persons) but not average-crime areas, when the authors controlled for neighborhood, family, and child covariates. In high-crime areas, academic outcomes were more favorable when self-care occurred in combination with after-school program participation.
Lord
Heather
H
Department of Psychology, Yale University.
Mahoney
Joseph L
JL
Department of Psychology, Yale University.
D000374:Aggression; D002648:Child; D002662:Child Health Services; D003415:Crime; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D007899:Leisure Activities; D009511:New England; D018579:Patient Selection; D012111:Residence Characteristics / Q000145:classification; D012648:Self Care; D013663:Teaching; D014505:Urban Population