African American Neighborhoods

1626 Words7 Pages

Psychology today can tell us that the environment in which we grow up in can have an important impact on a youth’s identity and future. Growing up in not only a state of poverty, but with additional social and economic disadvantages can have an overwhelming negative influence on student’s performance. In major cities across the United States schools that poverty stricken African American students attend are segregated, not in a legal sense, but because of location. Neighborhoods with soaring levels of poverty are limited to the oftentimes overpopulated, underfunded, and understaffed local schools. Creating a culture of multigenerational families isolated in their own poverty. There is a plethora of studies over the years that have thoroughly …show more content…

In a poor neighborhood we can watch a white and an African American child grow up. The difference between the two will be that the white child will have an smoother time growing up and moving out and into a middle-class neighborhood and the African American child will face many more strife and conflict. This is helps explain why 48% of African American families have lived in low-income areas for a typical minimum of two generations, while that only occurs to 7% of white families (Sharkey, 2013, p. 39). For African Americans it is significantly more difficult to leave the poverty that they were born …show more content…

J., & Ayanian, J. Z. (2011). Neighborhood characteristics associated with access to patient-centered medical homes for children. Health Affairs, 30(11), 2080–2089. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2011.0656

Braden, A. (1958). The wall between. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press.

Brooks-Gunn, J., & Markman, L. B. (2005). The contribution of parenting to ethnic and racial gaps in school readiness. The future of children, 15(1), 139-168.
Buka, S. L., Stichick, T. L., Birdthistle, I., & Earls, F. J. (2001). Youth exposure to violence: Prevalence, risks, and consequences. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 71(3), 298–310. doi:10.1037/0002-9432.71.3.298
Burdick-Will, J., Ludwig, J., Raudenbush, S. W., Sampson, R. J., Sonbonmatsu, L., & Sharkey, P. (2010). Converging evidence for neighborhood effects on children’s test scores: An experimental, quasi-experimental, and observational comparison. Paper prepared for the Brookings InstitutionProject on Social Inequality and Educational Disadvantage: New Evidence on How Families, Neighborhoods and Labor Markets Affect Educational Opportunities for American Children. Retrieved from