Youth Achivement and the Structure of Inner-City Neighborhoods:
The Chicago Neighborhood Study

The Chicago Youth Achievement study was designed to assess how the social development of youth is affected by the neighborhoods in which they live, and to identify the neighborhood characteristics that promote prosocial activities and discourage problem behavior. In 1990 and 1991, we interviewed 525 African-American families residing in 62 poor and nonpoor Chicago neighborhoods and gathered extensive information on a variety of social isolation indicators, including social networks, neighborhood associations, and community resource use, as well as important individual and family characteristics, in order to address these questions.

Guiding this study was the theoretical proposition that neighborhood disadvantage disrupts the social and cultural organization of neighborhoods in ways that ultimately weaken support for conventional behavior necessary for a successful transition to adulthood. Interest also centered on how family, school, and peer contexts directly influence development, as well as potentially mediating the effects of neighborhood disadvantage.

The Chicago Youth Achievement Study was funded by the MacArthur Foundation's Research Program on Successful Adolescent Development in High Risk Areas. It is one component of a larger multi-site project for which comparable data were collected in Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia, and rural areas of Iowa. Recent publications and presentations based on the Youth Achievement Study include:

Recent publications and presentations that used the Chicago Neighborhood Study include:

Elliot, Delbert, William Julius Wilson, David Huizinga, Scott Menard, Amanda Elliot and Bruce Rankin. Forthcoming. Good Kids in Bad Neighborhoods.

Elliot, Delbert, William Julius Wilson, David Huizinga, Robert Sampson, Amanda Elliot, and Bruce Rankin. 1996. "The Effects of Neighborhood Disadvantage on Adolescent Development." The Journal of Research on Crime and Delinquency 33:389-426.

Quane, James M. and Bruce H. Rankin. 1998. "Does Living in Poor Neighborhood Reduce Commitment to "Mainstream" Goals?: The Case of African-American Adolescents and Occupational Expectations." Journal of Family Issues, Vol.19: 769-794.

Quane, James M. and Bruce H. Rankin. 1997. "Does Dependency Cause Despondency? Welfare Receipt and Normative Expectations Among Inner-City African-American Youth." Journal of Health and Social Services Administration. Vol. 20:16-42.

Rankin, Bruce and James M. Quane. 2002. Social Context and Urban Adolescent Outcomes: The Interrelated Effects of Neighborhoods, Families, and Peers on African-American Youth. Social Problems Vol. 49: 79-100.

Rankin, Bruce and James M. Quane. 2000. Neighborhood Poverty and the Social Isolation of Inner-City African-American Families. Social Forces Vol. 79: 139-164. Reprinted in W. Allen Martin (ed.) The Urban Community. Prentice Hall, 2004.

Wilson, William Julius, James Quane, and Bruce Rankin. 2001. "The Inner City: Cultural Concerns." In N. Smelser and P. B. Bates (eds.) " International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Vol 11: p7526-30, Oxford, Pergamon.