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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.