Pathways to Positive Development of Inner-City Youth

• In Event: 1-094 - Focus on the Positives: Examining Positive Developmental Outcomes Within At-Risk Populations

Integrative Statement

Understanding of development among children growing up in the inner city has focused primarily on elevated risk and related problems in school functioning, mental health, and criminal justice involvement (e.g. Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997; Smith, Brooks-Gunn, & Klebanov, 1997). This focus is motivated by interest in understanding how the elevation exposure to development impeding influences might be mitigated (Tolan, Gorman-Smith, & Henry, 2004). However, such a focus can overlook the potential value gained from examining how children and families within this developmental ecology succeed.

Research has rarely considered what may be the most common developmental pathway even in these highest risk neighborhoods: effective development defined as adequate functioning across major domains of relationships, academics, and emotional and behavioral functioning. In particular, there is little information about effective development over time. This presentation takes advantage of one of the few longitudinal studies of a general population sampled from seven inner-city neighborhoods and followed with periodic sampling from first grade until the end of high school, the SAFEChildren sample.

482 families were recruited for a universal family and student tutoring intervention during first grade, with half randomly assigned (within school) to the intervention or no-intervention comparison. In addition to the test of the intervention, this study also provides opportunity for a rare longitudinal tracking of a general sample (not engaged based on anything other having a child entering first grade at the outset of the study and residing in urban communities marked by elevated crime and poverty levels).

The present study applies mixture models to 1) identify classes of child development across four major indicators of functioning a) school engagement b) disruptive behavior level c) internalizing problems, and d) perceived quality of parental relationship utilizing 11 waves of data collected over the time between beginning of first grade and 12 years later (end of high school). Neighborhood cohesion, parental reports of parenting practices and of engagement in school, child coping, and teacher parent relationships are utilized in multivariate prediction of class with attention to what distinguishes those with adequate functioning across time and domains from those evidencing multiple problems and those evidencing some problems in some domains. Results are thought to provide new and a new direction for organizing supportive and preventive interventions to enhance child outcomes for those growing up in these high risk communities.

Author

• Patrick H. Tolan, University of Virginia; Youth-Nex Center to Promote Effective Youth Development
  Presenting Author