Neighborhoods and Cognitive Development
Title
Neighborhoods and Cognitive Development
Author
Chen, Jondou
Brooks‐Gunn, Jeanne
Research Area
Social Processes
Topic
Urbanization
Abstract
Research on neighborhoods and individual well‐being has produced a substantive body of knowledge over the past quarter century. Neighborhood conditions—especially socioeconomic status (SES), which is based on income and education and to a lesser extent on residential stability—are predictive of cognitive development. The strongest evidence controls for individual and family‐level characteristics or examines individuals clustered within neighborhoods in order to obtain estimates of within‐ and between‐neighborhood variance. Another line of research has focused on housing mobility projects, which allow for the experimental assignment of residents to more advantaged neighborhoods. Future research on neighborhoods will continue to blend methods and data from an increasing number of disciplines to better understand human development in context.