Neighborhoods and Development: New Approaches for a Changing America

Google map

In this presentation Dr. White will integrate both mainstream and cultural developmental perspectives to inform research on neighborhood and spatial influences on children, youth, and families. First, she will suggest that a comprehensive understanding of neighborhood and activity space influences on child development must be informed by research on ethnic and racial minority children’s development. Second, she’ll posit that cultural-developmental frameworks provide good tools for theorizing ethnic and racial minority children’s development, but limited tools for theorizing what is happening in ethnically and racially structured spaces. Third, she’ll suggest that mainstream neighborhood frameworks – like social disorganization and collective efficacy theories – provide good tools for theorizing setting-level social processes, but limited tools for theorizing ethnic and racial minority youth’s development. Dr. White will close by sharing some examples of the types of research that can begin to decompartmentalize mainstream from cultural developmental perspectives to inform a new generation of neighborhood effects and place-based scholarship, one that recognizes changing U.S. demographics.

Presented by Penn State Developmental Psychology’s Professional Development Seminar in conjunction with the NSF funded workshop, Place-based Research to Understand Youth Development: Integrating Dynamic and Culturally-informed Models.