The theory of relative deprivation emphasizes that social comparisons contextualize how people experience impoverishment. An important application of this theory argues that relative deprivation that stems from unfavorable social comparisons can result in anger, normlessness and an increased likelihood of deviant behavior. We test this theory in a…

Research suggests that community-level poverty is associated with access to health care net of individual-level characteristics, but no research investigates whether this association differs by individual-level income. Using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys, the U.S. Census Bureau and the Health Resource and Services Administration,…

Analysis of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics combined with census data found that an increase in income inequality among census tracts in the same state had little effect on overall educational attainment but exacerbated inequality of attainment between high-income and low-income children. Within-tract inequality had little effect on…

Hypothesizes that a child's realization of genetic potential for intellectual development depends on socioeconomic environment. Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test results were examined for a large sibling sample of African American and White adolescents from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. When SES factors were considered…

Racial differences in adolescent premarital childbearing were largely explained by racial differences in neighborhood quality. These neighborhood effects were attributed to peer attitudes and behaviors, adolescents' more tolerant attitudes toward unmarried parenthood, and greater residential mobility in distressed communities. Neighborhood effects…

It has been argued that social isolation is the mechanism linking neighborhood disadvantage to residents' reduced life chances. Analysis of Chicago data on inner-city African American families (each containing a mother and adolescent child) found that families in poorer neighborhoods belonged to social networks with fewer resources but,…

Analysis of data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988, linked to neighborhood-level 1990 census data, indicates that neighborhood characteristics not only predict educational outcomes but also rival the strength of commonly cited family- and school-related predictors. Collective socialization was the strongest of proposed…