To Parent
The relationship between neighborhood racial composition and African American parents’ racial socialization
Fatima Varner et al.
Journal of Community Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study assessed the degree to which the racial composition of one's neighborhood was related to the racial socialization messages parents communicated to their children in a sample of 307 African American families. Linear regression analyses were conducted. Neighborhoods were classified as predominantly African American, predominantly European American, or racially integrated. Even after controlling for parents’ education, mental health, and family income, parents in predominantly European American and racially integrated neighborhoods gave more preparation for bias messages than those in predominantly African American neighborhoods. Parents of boys conveyed more cultural empowerment messages in racially integrated and predominantly European American neighborhoods than in predominantly African American neighborhoods. Older girls were more likely to receive egalitarian messages than older boys. African American parents may use more empowerment and preparation for bias messages when they feel their children are culturally isolated or likely to experience racial discrimination.
The contemporary transformation of American youth: An analysis of change in the prevalence of delinquency, 1991–2015
Eric Baumer, Kelsey Cundiff & Liying Luo
Criminology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Youth involvement in crime has declined substantially over the past few decades, yet the reasons for this trend remain unclear. We advance the literature by examining the role of several potentially important shifts in individual attitudes and behaviors that may help to account for the observed temporal variation in youth delinquency. Our multilevel analysis of repeated cross‐sectional data from eighth and tenth grade students in the Monitoring the Future (MTF) study indicates that changes in youth offending prevalence were not associated with changes in youth attachment and commitment to school, community involvement, or parental supervision after school. In contrast, the study provides suggestive evidence that the significant reduction in youth offending prevalence observed since the early 1990s was significantly associated with a decrease in unstructured socializing and alcohol consumption and, to a lesser extent, with a decrease in youth preferences for risky activities. Implications for existing theoretical explanations and future research on youth crime trends are discussed.
Detecting Drivers of Behavior at an Early Age: Evidence from a Longitudinal Field Experiment
Marco Castillo et al.
NBER Working Paper, December 2020
Abstract:
We use field experiments with nearly 900 children to investigate how skills developed at ages 3-5 drive later-life outcomes. We find that skills map onto three distinct factors - cognitive skills, executive functions, and economic preferences. Returning to the children up to 7 years later, we find that executive functions, but not cognitive skills, predict the likelihood of receiving disciplinary referrals. Economic preferences have an independent effect: children who displayed impatience at ages 3-5 were more likely to receive disciplinary referrals. Random assignment to a parenting program reduced disciplinary referrals. This effect was not mediated by skills or preferences.
Why Is an Early Start of Training Related to Musical Skills in Adulthood? A Genetically Informative Study
Laura Wesseldijk, Miriam Mosing & Fredrik Ullén
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Experts in domains such as music or sports often start training early. It has been suggested that this may reflect a sensitive period in childhood for skill acquisition. However, it could be that familial factors (e.g., genetics) contribute to the association. Here, we examined the effect of age of onset of musical training on musical aptitude and achievement in professional musicians (n = 310) and twins (n = 7,786). In line with previous literature, results showed that an earlier age of onset was associated with higher aptitude and achievement in both samples. After we adjusted for lifetime practice hours, age of onset was associated only with aptitude (p < .001; achievement: p > .14). Twin analyses showed that the association with aptitude was fully explained by familial factors. Thus, these findings provide little support for a sensitive period for music but highlight that familiar factors play an important role for associations between age of onset of training and skills in adulthood.
Distance to an Abortion Provider and Its Association with the Abortion Rate: A Multistate Longitudinal Analysis
Benjamin Brown et al.
Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, forthcoming
Methods: Two analyses were conducted using a data set linking provider locations and 2000–2014 county‐level abortion data for 18 states; data sources included the Census Bureau, state vital statistics offices and the Guttmacher Institute. First, a series of linear regression models were run, with and without adjustment for demographic covariates, modeling distance as both a continuous and a categorical variable. Then, an instrumental variable analysis was conducted in which being 30 or more miles from a large college‐enrolled female population younger than age 25 was used as an instrument for distance to a provider. The outcome variable for all models was abortions per 1,000 women aged 25 or older. All models were adjusted for state, year and state‐year interaction fixed effects.
Results: Increased distance to a provider was associated with a decreased abortion rate. Each additional mile to a provider was associated with a decrease of 0.011 in the abortion rate. Compared with being within 30 miles of a provider, being between 30 and 90 miles from a provider was associated with 0.80–1.46 fewer abortions per 1,000 women. In the instrumental variable analysis, being 30 or more miles from a provider was associated with 5.26 fewer abortions per 1,000 women.