Racial discrimination has serious negative consequences for the adjustment of African American adolescents. Taking an ecological approach, this study examined the linkages between perceived racial discrimination within and outside of the neighborhood and urban adolescents' externalizing and internalizing behaviors, and tested whether neighborhood…

This study uses geospatial and regression analyses to examine the relationships among social disorganization, collective efficacy, social control, residence restrictions, spatial autocorrelation, and the neighborhood distribution of registered sex offenders (RSOs) in Chicago. RSOs were concentrated in neighborhoods that had higher levels of social…

Recent evidence on the large variance in teacher effectiveness has spurred interest in teacher labor markets. Research documents that better qualified teachers typically work in more advantaged schools but cannot determine the relative importance of supply versus demand. To isolate teacher preferences, we document which schools prospective…

Living in a threatening, noxious, and dangerous neighborhood may produce anxiety, anger, and depression because it is subjectively alienating. We hypothesize that neighborhood disorder represents ambient threat that elicits perceptions of powerlessness, normlessness, mistrust, and isolation. These perceptions in turn lead to anxious and angry…

Distressed urban neighborhoods face challenges on multiple fronts, but most efforts to confront these problems work in isolation of one another. The New Communities Program (NCP) is an exception, helping selected Chicago neighborhoods develop partnerships to address challenges involving employment, education, housing, and safety in a…

This study explores how neighborhood context influences participation in local social organization through a multilevel-spatial analysis of residents in Chicago neighborhoods. We construct a typology of community participation based on two dimensions: instrumental vs. expressive motivations for participation and formal vs. informal modes of…

As the incomes of affluent and poor families have diverged over the past three decades, so too has the educational performance of their children. But how exactly do the forces of rising inequality affect the educational attainment and life chances of low-income children? In "Whither Opportunity?" a distinguished team of economists,…

This report describes residents' efforts to generate urban change and arrest the decline of their community, Edgewater, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. The report also examines how events in Edgewater affected and were affected by developments in Uptown (the adjoining predominantly commercial district) and in the Winthrop-Kenmore Corridor that…

Any voucher program that is going to have a major impact on a public education system is likely to require an expansion of private schools in order to accommodate increased demand; however, little is known about where private schools open and therefore how a major voucher program might affect private school availability in various communities.…

Public elementary and secondary schools in Illinois that have remained stably racially mixed over time are identified in this study. The neighborhood characteristics, pupil assignment policies, instructional programs, and other circumstances that have contributed to that stability are also determined. Several alternative definitions of…

This teaching guide contains the main idea of the unit, five sub-generalizations with suggestions for closely correlated learning activities, and references to instructional materials. The main idea of the unit is that "People from many difference groups work together to make the city a better place to live." Some of the supporting ideas…