The Impact of Neighborhood Disdavantage on Educational Outcomes: A Cohort Study of Chicago

• In Event: How Housing and Neighborhood Contexts Shape Children’s Educational Outcomes

Abstract

The Project on Human Developments in Chicago Neighborhoods provides rich longitudinal data from 1994 to 2012 on 7 cohorts of children aged 0 to 18 at baseline. Chicago neighborhoods, like many U.S. cities, experienced significant changes in violent crime, demographics, and investment in central city neighborhoods during this time. We analyze how neighborhood characteristics shape transitions into and out of school, focusing on school readiness and high school graduation, using an accelerated longitudinal cohort framework. This design allows us to consider the developmental trajectories of children from birth through young adulthood in the context of neighborhood change and residential mobility to assess at what points in a child’s life neighborhood characteristics matter and whether neighborhoods mattered more during particular eras

Authors

• Robert J. Sampson, Harvard University

• Ann Owens, University of Southern California