social capital in an impoverished minority neighborhood: emergence and effects on children's...

126 JCAPN Volume 21, Number 3, August, 2008

Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, Volume 21,Number 3, pp. 126–136

Blackwell Publishing IncMalden, USAJCAPJournal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing1073-60771744-6171XXX

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Social Capital in an Impoverished Minority Neighborhood: Emergence and Effects on Children’s Mental Health


Carole A. Hanks, RN, FPMHNP, DrPH

PROBLEM:

This study aims to describe and

analyze neighborhood effects on children’s mental

health, focusing on the emergence and effects of

Social Capital or informal social control.

METHOD:

Focus groups of Hispanic and

African American families raising children in a

low-income, minority neighborhood.

FINDINGS:

Parents’ alienation from and distrust

of public sources of formal social control, such as

policemen, prevented the emergence of positive

informal social control.

CONCLUSION:

Psychiatric nurses and nurse

practitioners must utilize public health and

individual therapeutic approaches to prevent and

treat children’s mental health problems in

disorganized, violent neighborhoods.

Search terms:

African American, children’s

mental health, Hispanic, police harassment, social

capital, violence

Carole A. Hanks, RN, FPMHNP, DrPH, is a Research Associate, School of Nursing, University of Rochester, Waco, TX.

A

s the psychiatric nurse or nurse practitioner evalu-ating and planning care for the teenage boy justadmitted with a possible diagnosis of conduct disorder,you know from research and clinical experience thatthe family’s interaction processes must be evaluatedand addressed in the treatment plan (Bruce, 2002;Woolfenden, Williams, & Peat, 2001). If you only seethe patient in a clinical environment, you may notrealize that neighborhood sociocultural processes alsoaffect mental health. Child development theoristsagree that conduct disorder emerging before age 11probably has a genetic component. Harsh, punitive,coercive parenting, intended to control a child’sbehavior, contributes to the development and severityof early-emerging conduct disorder (Loeber & Hay,1997). On the other hand, conduct disorder emerginglater in the teen years seems to be related to neighbor-hood or school contexts, as well as family context,rather than to the child’s genes. Child developmentresearchers have identified exposure to an impoverished,highly disorganized neighborhood context, oftenincluding deviant peers, as partially responsible forlate-emerging conduct disorder (Ingoldsby et al., 2006).

While acknowledging the important effects ofneighborhood structural characteristics, such aspoverty, on children’s behavioral problems, this studyaddresses the effects of certain neighborhood sociocul-tural processes: formal and informal social control.Police actions and speed limits are examples of formalsocial control. Adult neighbors coaching children’ssports teams or asking neighborhood children to stopdrawing graffiti are examples of informal social control.James Coleman (1988) called his theory of informalsocial control Social Capital. He defined Social Capitalas a dynamic process of interactions among closednetworks of parents and their children in schools orneighborhoods, which fostered agreement on children’s

JCAPN Volume 21, Number 3, August, 2008 127

behavioral norms as well as enforcement of thosenorms. Coleman tested Social Capital Theory bycomparing children’s academic performances in public-and church-run schools. Church-run schools had moreSocial Capital and, consequently, children had bettereducational outcomes, controlling for pertinentindividual and family characteristics. Current defi-nitions of Social Capital vary; some even consider it asprestige, a person-level variable (Moore, Hanines, Hawe,& Shiell, 2006; Poortinga, 2006). For my purposes,Social Capital is defined as Coleman did—as a group-level variable representing informal social control.

Based on Social Capital Theory, the a priori hypo-theses for this case study of a low-income, minorityurban neighborhood are that parents will form cohesivenetworks, agree on children’s behavioral norms,and act collaboratively to enforce those norms for allneighborhood children. Analysis of the extensivequalitative data from focus groups and participantobservation in this case study generated additionalhypotheses. Oppressive formal social control, muchlike harsh, punitive, coercive parenting (Moffit, 1993),directly and indirectly fosters children’s deviantbehaviors. Oppressive formal social control of childrenindirectly affects their behaviors by antagonizingparents and decreasing parents’ trust and expectationsof mutual benefit from public institutions. The result-ing distrust and alienation of parents from publicinstitutions precludes cooperation between sources offormal and informal social control to socialize childrenin positive ways.

Background

Nursing theory and practice have long addressedthe importance of healthy environments. FlorenceNightingale found that good plumbing was as import-ant as nursing care for soldiers in the Crimean War inthe 19th century (McDonald, 2004). In the 21st centurycontext still matters. In many neighborhoods, crime,poverty, and poor schools overwhelm parents’ effortsto raise healthy, productive children (Brooks-Gunn,Duncan, & Aber, 1997a,b; Browning, Levelthal, &Brooks-Gunn, 2004; Sampson & Raudenbush, 1997).Nurses involved in research, practice, and educationmust not only work in community settings, but alsoconsider the whole community as a “patient” (AmericanAssociation of Colleges of Nursing, 1999). While Cargo,

Grams, Ottoson, Ward, and Green (2003) provide oneexample of nurses working as partners with adultsand youth to create a neighborhood context capable offostering youth mental health, most children’s mentalhealth interventions carried out in community settingsare still aimed at individual or family change ratherthan collective social change (Kitzman et al., 1997;Park et al., 2000).

In 1987, W. J. Wilson inspired a resurgence of interestin neighborhood effects with his assertion in

The TrulyDisadvantaged

that inner-city neighborhood conditions—violence, poor schools, poor housing, and lack of localemployment—not the character or genetic makeup ofthe poor, explained poor school performance, teenagepregnancy, and family disorganization. Nearly 20 yearsof research evidence supports his assertion. For example,neighborhood quality, rather than racial/ethnic issues,has been found to explain a young African Americanmale’s increased involvement in crime (Lauritsen,2003; Sampson, Morenoff, & Raudenbush, 2005).

Structural Neighborhood Theory: Social Disorganization

Sampson and Raudenbush (1997) built on Coleman’sSocial Capital Theory (Coleman, 1988, 1990) andearlier neighborhood theories (Shaw & McKay, 1969)to explain how both neighborhood structure and pro-cess affect children’s health. The main structural theoryexplaining neighborhood effects on children is socialdisorganization theory. Neighborhood social disor-ganization is measured by averaging levels of struc-tural or society-level indicators of poverty and racialsegregation. Sampson and Raudenbush averaged 5 or 6of the following indicators of disorganization, depend-ing on the theoretical perspective of a particular study:percentages of persons with income less than poverty,persons 16 or older and unemployed, African Americans,families receiving welfare, children, and families headedby a single mother. Disorganization theory addresseshow community or national economic and politicalforces (Cattell, 2001) affect the local neighborhood, butdoes not address neighborhood-level social processes.

Informal Social Control

In addition to measuring neighborhood structuralcharacteristics, Sampson, Morenoff, and Felton (1999)



also measured social processes. These researchers usedthe term

informal social control

(ISC) to better communicatethe importance of dynamic human agency that is partof Social Capital. ISC blends two group processes:cohesive interactions and collective efficacy. As pre-viously described, cohesive interactions in a closednetwork of parents and children not only allowinformation exchange among parents, but also fosterreciprocal trust and expectations that parents willcollaboratively define children’s normative behavior.The second group process that is part of ISC, collectiveefficacy, is an adaptation to groups of Bandura’s (1997)individual-level self-efficacy theory. ISC is measuredusing questions addressing cohesion, agreement onnorms, and collective efficacy. Examples are

Cohesion

:“Is this a close knit neighborhood?”

Norms

(reversecoded): “People in this neighborhood generally doNOT share the same values?” and

Collective Efficacy

:“Would you say that neighbors can be counted on totake action if children are disrespectful to an adult?”

ISC is measured using questions addressing

cohesion, agreement on norms, and collective

efficacy.

Sampson and colleagues (1999) used varianceanalysis to simultaneously study the effects of bothconcentrated disorganization and ISC on children’soutcomes. They found that neighborhood disorganiza-tion and ISC were inversely related. Neighborhoodshigh in social disorganization were often, but notalways, low in ISC and, consequently, less able tosocialize children in positive ways. In neighborhoodswith large numbers of poor people and single-parentfamilies, residents usually reported being less likely totake action to control children or otherwise make theneighborhood safer. Furthermore, neighborhoodstability and affluence fostered ISC. That is, in neigh-borhoods where more homes were owned, peoplemoved infrequently, and at least 20% of the residentswere affluent, intergenerational closure and reciprocalexchange among residents were higher. Of most

importance for our interest in ISC, after controllingstatistically for person- and family-level attributes, aswell as neighborhood disorganization, differencesamong neighborhoods in ISC still explained additionalvariance in juvenile delinquency and other mentalhealth outcomes of children. While rare, there weredisorganized neighborhoods with high ISC wherechildren thrived.

While variance analyses have provided insight intothe risks of disorganization and the protective effectsof ISC, such analyses do not address how ISC iscreated or invoked to foster children’s health anddevelopment. This case study describes and analyzeshow and why ISC emerged or failed to emerge in apoor minority neighborhood. Case studies are appro-priate to answer such how and why questions (Yin, 1994).

Methods

Sample

Southside is a mixed-race neighborhood in a South-western city. Southside has changed radically since the1960s when highway and urban renewal constructionprojects replaced public housing and family homeswith university dormitories, and then physically dividedthe formerly highly segregated African Americanneighborhood with an interstate highway. The neigh-borhood demographics for Southside at the time of thestudy included a high proportion of children (31% ofthe population), Hispanics (54%), and about equalpercentages of African Americans (22%) and EuropeanAmericans (19%). One third of the population hadincome below the federal poverty level (U.S. CensusBureau, 2000). Many of the European Americans wereuniversity students who preferred the low-cost hous-ing in Southside to dormitory life. Residents kept thehistory of Southside alive by telling their childrenabout these historic changes in their neighborhood.There was still interaction and a sense of cohesionbetween the divided parts of the old neighborhood,but most of this study sample resided in two censustracts west of the interstate highway.

Data Collection

The author volunteered as a nurse practitioner,home-visitor, and parent-group leader for the parent–child


therapeutic nursery of an ecumenical church in South-side from 1997 to 2004. In this role, the author gainedtrust and access to neighborhood residents of all ages.As part of her teaching in an interdisciplinary socialscience class with a “social security” theme, the authorreceived approval from the university institutionalreview board for a study of child-rearing in a low-incomeneighborhood (Hanks, 2003). Church leaders collabo-rated in the design of the study and recruited parents,other adults, middle- and high-school students attend-ing after-school activities, and patrons of a church-sponsored café for five focus groups of 10–12 persons.Each group was homogeneous by age and gender.

The group leaders convened the focus groups in theevening at the mission café so that the leaders, students,and focus group participants could socialize whileeating together. The participants, group leaders, andstudents formed a circle for the focus groups. Thestudents had overlapping recording assignments sothat each participant’s words were recorded separatelyby two students for verifiability and completeness.All adult participants, as well as each child’s parent,signed institutional review board–approved consentforms. The researcher’s participation in other activities—weekly parenting groups, home visits, and café discus-sions—provided background for focus group dataanalysis.

Data Analysis

The leaders and students reviewed and discussedthe focus group recordings as part of the educationalexperience. Further analysis of these data includedidentifying and coding themes and supporting ordisconfirming examples that related not only to thecomponents and process of Social Capital formationin each study, but also to “rich points” (Agar, 2004), ornew and unexpected concepts that emerged. Iterativecontent analysis eventually produced “massive overdetermination of pattern” (Agar & McDonald, 1995),along with borderline and contrary examples (Patton,2002; Yin, 1994).

Rigor/Validity

Working exclusively with an interdenominationalmission group to recruit participants may have limitedthe generalizability of the findings. For example, the

Census (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000) reports that only19% of the neighborhood population were AfricanAmericans, yet they composed over half of the focusgroup sample. There were no European Americansin the focus groups. However, parents of all racesattended the parenting groups. Forty percent of neigh-borhood European Americans were of college age andmay have been transient college students.

Results

Formal Social Control

Formal social control is discussed first as it hadunexpected negative impacts on the emergence ofneighborhood ISC and, thus, on children’s socializa-tion. Adults and children reported clashes withseveral sources of formal social control—police,school staff, and representatives of other publicinstitutions.

Police

Police harassment was frequently reported. A20-year-old man said: “Once you do anything bad youare ‘marked’ by the police even if you try to changeyour ways.” The young men described police drivingby, saying their names, smiling, and then comingback. Men, as well as the pastors and the women inthe community, reported police stopping residents,mostly young men, and “talking crazy” to them untilthe person reacted. Resisting arrest was reported to bethe most frequent reason for residents to go to jail.One young man spoke for all of them:

You let them do what they got to do, then it’ll pass.They’ll test you “til you say somethin”, then they’lltake you to jail.Sometimes we don’t keep our cool—go to jail.

Schools

Residents reported that school system staff lackedwarmth and concern for the children. Residentsdescribed some administrators as friendly and helpful,but believed that others punished children forunproved allegations and tardiness that was the faultof others. Parents complained about the waste ofresources in locking school grounds when childrenneeded safe places to play.



Other Public Institutions

Adults reported that representatives of political,justice, and transportation institutions were alsounresponsive to their needs. Many residents refusedto register to vote either because they thought it was awaste of time or was an invitation to jury duty. Evenafter the researcher explained that jury duty wasbased not on voting, but on having a driver’s license,all but one young man still refused to register. Residentscould identify only one neighborhood leader: the pastorof the ecumenical church that founded the café andtherapeutic nursery. Furthermore, they mistrustedpublic officials elected from the neighborhood whohad “forgotten where they came from.” The publictransportation system only functioned until 6:00 p.m.and required time-consuming transfers, making itnearly useless for travel to and from jobs. The onlysource of formal social control that was praised bythe residents was the fire department. Residents likedtheir quick service and polite demeanor.

Informal Social Control

InteractionsCohesion.

A sense of cohesion evolved from dailyinteractions among families with children—on frontporches, at the general store, at the café, or at parent-ing meetings. Residents reported that children herehad a strong sense of place. One child confirmed thissense of place by saying: “When I am rich I will putbars on all the windows, but I will build a two-storyhouse right here in Southside.” However, other childrenwanted to “get out of this place.” One teenage girl saidthat she wanted to live “where the rich people live.”

Interaction Barriers.

While there were dense con-nections among residents, interpersonal barriers suchas differences in race, gender, and duration of residencelimited interactions. Young children were observedself-segregating by race, and adolescents reportedfights among different races at school. On the otherhand, women described having close interracialfriendships. Particularly among African Americans,fathers were not involved in child-rearing. Only twofathers, one Hispanic and one African American,attended the parenting group. Participants preferredinteracting with long-term residents. Long-timeresidents remembered being displaced by the localuniversity’s expansion during urban renewal in the 1960s.

University students represented the threat of continueduniversity expansion. Census statistics showed similarpercentages of long-time neighborhood residents(34%) compared to county (33%) and state rates (30%).These statistics failed to support fears of an influx ofstrangers, leading to less cohesion and fewer produc-tive interactions among neighbors (U.S. CensusBureau, 2000).

While there were dense connections among

residents, interpersonal barriers such as

differences in race, gender, and duration of

residence limited interactions.

There were also physical barriers to interactions.Fences and rules imposed by the police and the publichousing administrators decreased the sense of belong-ing and neighborhood cohesion. The rules allowedonly project residents to be inside the fences builtaround housing project buildings and the adjoininggreen space and playground. Because Southside islabeled a “high drug use area,” the police preventedresidents from moving around the community or con-gregating in public areas.

Intergenerational Closure.

Intergenerational closurein this poor, mixed-race neighborhood differed fromthe Israeli middle-class neighborhoods where Colemanfirst developed his Social Capital Theory (1988). InIsrael, most children lived with a married mother andfather. In Southside, nearly 100% of African Americanfamilies raising their own children were headed bysingle mothers. However, 86% of Hispanic childrenlived with their married parents. Intergenerational tiesin African American families were usually restrictedto children and their mothers and grandmothers.African American fathers seldom cared for, or evenparticipated in, decisions regarding their children.Residents attributed this matrilineal family structureto fathers’ inability to contribute financially. AfricanAmerican fathers and children lamented their lack ofinteraction. Several teenage girls chanted:


First girl: A father helps. He is there for you throughthick and thin.Second girl: Preach it, girl. They should be therethrough thick and thin.Third girl: A daddy was just there when your mamahad you.Fourth girl: He wasn’t even there when my motherhad me.

The girls wanted supportive father–daughter relation-ships, but actual father–daughter relationships wererare. In response to the question posed to them (“Arefathers very involved?”), they responded:

First girl: [You got to] find him.Second girl: Keep him out of jail. Call 1-800-SEARCH.Third girl: They don’t come.Fourth girl: They do more stuff with guy kidsbecause they the same.First girl: He wasn’t there to teach me to ride mybike.

Agreement on Behavioral Norms

The norms that emerged in this study, like theAfrican American norm of single parent and matriar-chal rather than married couple family structure, maybe cultural adaptations necessary for survival withhigh poverty and unemployment (Burton, 1990, 1997).Residents discussed other norms that deviated frommainstream norms in two areas affecting children’sgrowth and development: adult roles and relationshipsand immediate versus future orientation.

Adult Roles and Relationships.

Interacting withand observing adult role models are parts of children’ssocialization to prevalent norms. The main neighbor-hood norm identified for an adult male—working ina good-paying job appropriate for a man, such asconstruction or manufacturing—was not followedby African American men in this neighborhood. Thework participation rate for African American men was0% (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). On the other hand,60% of African American women were in the laborforce and employed. Hispanic workforce participationdiffered from that of African Americans: few Hispanicwomen were in the labor force, but 90% of Hispanicmen worked. African American boys identified only theirmothers or sport stars as their heroes, providing furtherevidence of their lack of positive local male role models.

In impoverished, minority neighborhoods, childrengrow up fast. By their teens, African American childrenare as tall as, and are treated like, adults at home.However, at school and interacting with police andother adults outside the neighborhood, teenagersare still considered children and given little respect(Burton, 1997). Both Hispanic and African Americanboys told us that the most important thing for themwhen interacting with adults was getting respect.Without that respect, the boys of all races agreed thatthey were likely to commit crimes. This was a chillingparallel to the likelihood of children developingconduct disorder if their parents are harsh and punitiverather than warm and supportive (Loeber, 1990).

The previously discussed isolation of fathers fromtheir children, particularly from their daughters, waspainful for both. When directly asked about ways mencould build relationships with their daughters, fathersagreed with their daughters’ perception that they didmore with their sons than daughters. Fathers talkedabout playing sports with their sons and teachingthem responsibility, but could not name any activitiesto share with daughters. Despite their isolation fromfathers, some girls reported being strongly influencedeven by fathers they seldom saw. One girl whosefather was in jail said: “My Dad said, ‘Finish school forhim, and don’t have babies.’” While it was rare, atleast one girl stayed with her father rather than hermother when her parents divorced.

The sensitive issue of male sexual norms may havecontributed to the lack of father–daughter relation-ships. Residents talked abstractly, but never gaveconcrete examples, of males making inappropriatesexual advances to young girls. A female communityinformant told us that there was a saying in thecommunity: “The sword has no master.” This sayingwas explained as meaning that some men followedtheir sexual urges without thinking of the harm theywere doing. A young man confirmed this belief byvery quietly saying that men could not be alone withtheir daughters.

Immediate Versus Future Orientation.

Parents teachchildren to have an immediate or future orientationnot only by how they think and act, but also byinstruction. Children with a future orientation havethe self-regulation to intentionally anticipate and planto behave in ways that will assure achievement oflong-term goals rather than simply reacting to situations



or mimicking peers’ behavior. Programs aimed atincreasing children’s future orientation teach parentsto set limits and state positive expectations as well asmonitor children’s behaviors. The degree of futureorientation has been shown to predict adolescent’sdelayed initiation of sexual intercourse and use ofalcohol (Brody et al., 2003).

Data from this case study indicated that parentsthemselves often lacked a future orientation, andconsciously or unconsciously taught their children tofocus on immediate rather than long-term goals. Theparents’ rationale was explained in this way: “Parentstry to make kids tough by teaching them not to expectanything. There is no encouragement.” Adults oftenlacked a future orientation, having themselves experi-enced many instances of community institutionslimiting, rather than expanding, long-term options.For example, one adult had completed all but one testto complete the general education diploma when shehad her second baby. By the time she returned tocomplete the last test, all the tests had been changedand she had to start over.

Conflicts Between Informal and Formal Social Control.

As previously noted, there were conflicts with police,housing project administrators, school staff, and otherinstitutions. These conflicts decreased parents’ abilityto instill in children the skills and hope needed to setand achieve long-term goals. While parents approvedof young children attending the church-run therapeuticnursery and were excited about their young children’sburgeoning vocabularies, adolescents were allowed todrop out of high school because parents and childrenfelt alienated from and not respected by school staff.One boy explained: “Education is not a guarantee for ajob.” Adolescents reported little interest in their classes,and that drug dealing and other disruptions madeschool a waste of time. After dropping out of school,some children tried attending self-paced alternativeschools, but most lacked the support and self-disciplineto graduate. Only one third of residents aged 25 ormore had high school or general education diplomas,compared to more than three fourths at the county,state, and national levels (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000).

African American boys lacking positive adult malerole models sought acceptance and respect in thestreets. Mothers were ambivalent about trying to pro-tect boys from neighborhood drugs and violence bysetting and enforcing curfews. One mother felt that

her efforts to protect her son had contributed to hisdeath at age 15:

My son . . . I used to always be on him. He wascalled a Momma’s boy.He went to the streets. He couldn’t stand it.

Males that survived to adulthood were marginalizedin so many ways that they described themselves as“leftover kids.” They refused to work at available jobsin fast-food or service industries that they did notconsider “manly enough.” On the other hand, theywere too old to attend church-run after-school orsummer activities. Lacking jobs to buy diapers orotherwise help financially led to being excluded fromchild-raising. Adolescent males had little hope ofattaining adult status, respect, or responsibility.

The neighborhood norm of immediate retaliationfor verbal or physical aggression from peers also illus-trated the focus on immediate rather than long-termgoals. The therapeutic nursery used the High/ScopeCurriculum in which teachers model how to solveinterpersonal problems by helping children generatenonviolent solutions to anything from fighting over atoy to cursing out a teacher (Barnett, 1996). After theparents viewed a High/Scope videotape on problem-solving, they said they disagreed with teaching childrento avoid fights. They explained that parents mustteach children to retaliate immediately and then leftthe room.

The neighborhood norm of immediate

retaliation for verbal or physical aggression

from peers also illustrated the focus on

immediate rather than long-term goals.

Agency to Enforce Norms

Two ingredients in the recipe for Social Capital orISC in neighborhoods—interactions among parentsand children, and adult agreement on children’sbehavioral norms—have been discussed in previous


sections. Agency is the last essential ingredient in the“recipe.” According to Social Capital Theory, agencydevelops in an atmosphere of trust and mutual expec-tations among those with social control.

Cohesion and trust among residents were majorcommunity assets that should have promoted agency toenforce norms. One of the founders of the therapeuticnursery said, “Everyone is related.” However, thissense of being an extended family was changing.Residents reported that they no longer had thefreedom and responsibility to discipline other people’schildren. One reported, “When I was young, if Imisbehaved, any adult who saw it would whup meand then I would get another whupping when I gothome.” Now, however, immediate violent reactionsfrom unrelated children were expected and feared inresponse to attempts to correct their behavior.

The most obvious way for residents to exercise ISCwas to try to rid the neighborhood of drug dealers.All residents agreed that drug dealing was not goodfor the neighborhood. Girls described the impact of drugsand alcohol in great detail and with strong emotions.When asked what they would change about the neigh-borhood, female adolescents were quick to answer:

[Change] the dopeheads. That ain’t funny, though.The dope dealers. I know ’em. They over on thecorner.They have roaches and cockroaches. Young boyssmoke marijuana.Today a boy got caught in the restroom withcocaine.In eighth grade they try to sell dope.

Despite the general verbal condemnation of drugdealing and use, the local pastor reported that drugselling was the only apparent source of income forsome families. Furthermore, families resented policeefforts to control drugs by harassing residents andrestricting their moving about and congregating at will.

Summary

Residents of this mixed-race, low-income neigh-borhood reported

frequent, cohesive interactions

. Interac-tions among African Americans were mainly amongchildren and their female parents and guardians.African American males lacked models and resourcesto achieve basic developmental goals, such as industry,

identity, and intimacy. African American males wantedto follow

norms

of being productive and loving fathers,but they were alienated from the job market and,consequently, from their wives or girlfriends andchildren. Lacking adult roles, young African Americanmen described themselves as “leftover kids.” Overall,residents were alienated from and distrusted publicsources of

formal social control

. The

formal sources ofcontrol

—the housing authority, teachers, and policemen—were punitive rather than supportive and were notconsidered partners by the parents in creating a nur-turing context for children. Residents

avoided enforcingbehavioral norms

for any children but their own due tofear of retaliation. Adults’

agency

was directed towardreinforcing long-entrenched norms such as “a toothfor a tooth” that prevented children from adoptingnorms with more enduring value such as negotiatingand problem-solving.

Discussion

Generalizability

“Street” Versus “Decent” Culture

Case studies from other urban areas provide insightabout whether the results found in Southside were uniqueor comparable to other low-income urban neighbor-hoods. Elijah Anderson (1999) studied an AfricanAmerican, low-income, urban neighborhood inPhiladelphia and found that “decent” families tried toconfront other parents when their children stole fromor assaulted their children. Strong fathers sometimesheaded decent families and protected their familiesfrom the “street” culture. However, there was no criticalmass of decent families to change the street culture.When uncoordinated efforts to control other children’saggression failed, as in Southside, parents in decentfamilies responded aggressively or taught their childrento avoid confrontations. Boys were allowed in Phila-delphia, as in this case study, to roam unsupervised inthe neighborhood. Anderson described the particularproblem boys had when they moved to new neighbor-hoods. On their first forays into the new neighborhood,“new” boys had to be willing to fight back or be bullied.

Threats to Development of Neighborhood Leadership

A second urban neighborhood case study in Cincinnati(Halperin, 1998) echoed our finding that even moderate



stability fosters cohesion, a sense of place, and mutualexpectations of support in poor, urban neighborhoods.The Cincinnati case study provided more insight intowhy cohesion does not guarantee agency. Home-grownleaders were rare, as they were in Southside. Commonthreats, such as illness, death, personal crises, andfeuds, quickly exhausted neighborhood leaders inCincinnati. Cohesive relationships with neighborsdid not prevent accusations that community leaderstaking responsibility for calling and running meetingswere power-hungry.

Designing Neighborhood Interventions

The case studies discussed in the previous sectionsupport the findings of this study that disorganizedneighborhoods cannot “fix” themselves. Residents withthe agency to attempt to socialize children in morepositive ways or to otherwise empower the neighbor-hood were rare and quickly overwhelmed. This sectionwill discuss the need for a public health approach tomental health, including interventions to increasecollaboration between sources of informal and formalsocial control in and outside the neighborhood.

Anomie and Alienation Are the “Tip of the Iceberg”

Durkheim (2002) hypothesized over 50 years agothat anomie or feeling without purpose and withoutadequate resources to achieve life goals predicted themost serious symptom of poor mental health: suicide.Hispanic adolescent males have high rates of suicide,and African American males have high rates ofattempted suicide and extremely high rates ofhomicide (Gould, Greenberg, Velting, & Shaffer, 2003).Impulsive, self-injurious behaviors such as these mustbe fueled by widespread hopelessness and depression.Thus, immediate action is needed to implementpublic health interventions, such as more control ofthe production and sale or transfer of ammunition andguns. Providing only individual mental health care toaddress anomie and alienation without advocatingstructural changes would continue to “blame thevictims.” Long-term action is needed to change theroot causes of anomie and alienation.

Research supports the conclusion that differences inneighborhood structure and process affect children’smental health. For example, Drukker, Buka, Kaplan,McKenzie, and Van Os (2005) found that perceived

neighborhood cohesion and social support had positiveeffects on children’s ratings of general and mentalhealth, while racism (Franzini, Caughy, Spears, & Esquer,2005), poverty, and racial segregation (McGrath, Mat-thews, & Brady, 2006) predicted depression. Structuralchanges in neighborhood quality, such as improvedjob opportunities and less racism and alienation of thepoor from community institutions (such as the justiceand educational systems), may be the first step.Improving job opportunities and decreasing prejudiceagainst minority males will require changes of attitudesand actions on the part of public institutions. Suchchanges are difficult and slow; they require not onlyreeducation, but also positive face-to-face experiencesthat increase mutual trust and understanding of eachother’s world views by both neighborhood residentsand public servants. There is a great need for bridgingor “weak ties” between residents and policemen,schoolteachers and administrators, public housingstaff, and others.

Bonding and Bridging Ties

Granovetter, in

The Strength of Weak Ties

(1973),suggested that loose ties may be as important as closecohesive ties in fostering development. Weak ties arebridges between two or more groups bound togetherinternally by strong ties. These bridging ties allowan injection of new knowledge and experience intoclosed systems. The danger of having exclusivelybonding or strong personal ties in poor neighbor-hoods is that they tend to reinforce whatever normsare present. If those norms condone violence inretaliation for violence, and a present rather than afuture orientation, then children are “stuck” in acycle of school dropout and unemployment. As oneresident described parents in Southside: “They don’twant their children to expect too much out of life.They want them to get used to people being hard onthem. They don’t know any better.”

Such bridges between sources of informal andformal social control will not be easy to build. Univer-sity students who attended the focus groups helpedset up meetings with the representatives of the localpublic housing agency and with local police. Onlythe housing agency head attended. Without moreinteraction and goodwill, the police will continueto believe that all young African American men aredeviant and cannot change. The schools will not


understand adolescent boys’ needs for respect andwill continue to assume that some neighborhoodchildren cannot be trusted to tell the truth or torespect property. By promoting bridging ties betweenparents and the police, schools, and housing agencies,professional mental health services might increasetrust and build reciprocal expectations of collabora-tion between these sources of informal and formalsocial control. Working together, they are more likelyto foster rather than thwart children’s healthydevelopment.

Social Capital or informal social control is

important in shaping the neighborhood context

for children over and above poverty and other

structural issues.

Conclusion

Social Capital or informal social control is import-ant in shaping the neighborhood context for childrenover and above poverty and other structural issues.This is one of a few studies describing and analyzinghow ISC emerges and the impact of interaction ofinformal and formal social control on child health. Thelack of coordination between informal and formalsocial control processes identified in this study is mostdetrimental for minority males.

Laissez-faire parenting

;lack of respect or support from adults at school; andharsh, punitive, coercive police actions seem designedto propel these minority males from conduct disorderto full-time criminal behavior. Minority males’ presentrisk of incarceration and alienation from the jobmarket starts a cascade of failure that affects everyonein the neighborhood and the larger society, from theirfemale partners, to their children, to the taxpayerswho pay for them to be in jail rather than becominghealthy, productive citizens.

Author contact: [email protected], with a copy to theEditor: [email protected]

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