Accumulating evidence suggests that African American men and women experience unique challenges in developing and maintaining stable, satisfying romantic relationships. Extant studies have linked relationship quality among African American couples to contemporaneous risk factors such as economic hardship and racial discrimination. Little research,…

Previous research on educational aspirations has focused almost exclusively on micro-level predictors of educational aspirations. Notably absent from these studies are measures reflecting the neighborhood context in which adolescents live. Drawing on Wilson's theory of neighborhood effects, the present study examines the extent to which…

Used a hierarchical linear model to examine contributions of neighborhood disadvantage, collective socialization, and parenting to African American 10- to 12-year-olds' affiliation with deviant peers. Found that community disadvantage had a significant positive effect on deviant peer affiliations. Nurturant/involved parenting and collective…

Iowa study of 207 nonmetropolitan White female-headed families (each a divorced mother, an adolescent in grade 8-9, and a sibling) found that mothers' ineffective parenting styles were related to community disorganization, both directly and indirectly via negative events, lack of social support, and depression. Community disorganization was highly…