Neighborhood socioeconomic conditions as moderators of family resource transmission: High school completion among at-risk youth

Abstract

We investigate how neighborhood socioeconomic conditions (SES), family resources during adolescence, and high school completion are related for a sample of at-risk youth. Borrowing from the "neighborhood effects" and family literatures, we investigate whether the effects of family economic resources, connections to the community, school, and religious institutions and family structure on high school completion depend on levels of neighborhood SES. Analyses using panel data on nearly five hundred families in urban Philadelphia confirm that high SES neighborhoods enhance parental ability to turn some but not all of their resources into positive educational outcomes for their children. The results provide a basis for understanding the processes whereby neighborhoods influence parent-child resource transmission.