Description

This is a study of successful youth development in poor, disadvantaged neighborhoods. This is a study of successful youth development in poor, disadvantaged neighborhoods in Denver and Chicago - a study of how children living in the worst neighborhoods develop or fail to develop the values, competencies and commitments that lead to a productive, healthy responsible adult life. This is a study of successful youth development in poor, disadvantaged neighborhoods in Denver and Chicago - a study of how children living in the worst neighborhoods develop or fail to develop the values, competencies and commitments that lead to a productive, healthy responsible adult life. This is a study of successful youth development in poor, disadvantaged neighborhoods in Denver and Chicago - a study of how children living in the worst neighborhoods develop or fail to develop the values, competencies and commitments that lead to a productive, healthy responsible adult life. While there is a strong focus on neighborhood effects, the study employs a multicontextual model examining both the direct effects of the neighborhood ecology, social organization and contexts embedded in the neighborhood. The unique and combined influence of the neighborhood, family, school, peer group and individual attributes on developmental success is estimated. The view that growing up in a poor, disadvantaged neighborhood condemns one to a life of repeated failure and personal pathology is revealed as a myth, as most youth in these neighborhoods are completing the developmental tasks of adolescence successfully. Foreword; Acknowledgments; 1. Growing up in disadvantaged neighborhoods; 2. Growing up in Denver and Chicago: the neighborhood study; 3. Good and bad neighborhoods for raising children; 4. The effects of growing up in a bad neighborhood: initial findings; 5. Critical dimensions of neighborhood organization and culture; 6. The effects of neighborhood organization and culture; 7. Family influences: managing disadvantage and promoting success; 8. School climate and types of peer groups; 9. What matters most for successful youth development?; 10. Successful development in disadvantaged neighborhoods; Appendix A; Appendix B. "This book has numerous strenghts. As Richard Jessor, chair of the Research Network on Successful Adolescent Development, explains in the foreword, Good Kids offers an example of the new transdisciplinary research taht tackles a complex social problem from multiple perspectives. In moving beyond sociology's traditional focus on structural variables, such as social class, to identify the explanatory mechanissm that ccount for the effect of those structural variables on human lives, the researchers have contributed an important model for future development."
--Patricia T. Ashton
"The authors go beyond the one-dimensional approach as their work articulates and tests a framework for understanding the impact of multiple contexts on youth development...As they provide this important study in helping us understand youth development, they also push the field of social inquiry to consider the influence of multiple contexts on all aspects of life."
--Stephanie Cosner Berzin, Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare