Neighborhood Poverty and Adolescent Development Analysis

From the Article, the passage that I have chosen to look at talks about the indirect effects that Neighborhood poverty has on an individual's academic achievement, including their literacy and their drop out rates. 

In the first section, it mentions that "The effect on neighbourhood disadvantage on school dropout was twice as large for African American youth as compared with White Peers (McBridge-Murry 117). In this case, this quote is in line with the article, since the article attempts to prove the effect poverty has on academic achievement, and how this poverty is split among racial lines. Therefore, the quote can be seen as a way to represent the entire article, since it states that African American youth are more likely to drop out of classes than youth of other ethnicities, even though other factors such as family structure and demographics have an effect on drop out rates across all ethnicities. This data is also backed up by the second article by Steinberg and Sheffield, who also go on to claim that ethnic and socioeconomic issues affect adolescent success and dropout rates (Steinberg and Morris 96). Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the article mentions that in non African American youth, females were more likely to drop out of high school than males were (McBridge-Murry 118). This can be due to the social pressures and conditions young women find themselves in, especially coming from a position of poverty, where they may be required to take care of younger siblings, take care of the house, or fall victim to substance abuse. Lastly, the section concludes with the statement that “across generations, the negative influence of neighbourhood poverty has increased for African American youths and remained equal for White youths” (McBridge-Murry 118). This is an interesting statistic to note, it can be seen that living conditions for African American youths are poorer than they were in the past, despite the racial inequality, since in the modern age, African American youth from impoverished areas are more susceptible to exposure of illicit substances, in addition to increasing peer influences from their community, coupled with the fact that most schools do not attempt to provide help to those coming from impoverished communities. Therefore, in order to change the problems noted in this article, schools need to be able to provide the proper tools that allow students from poverty to succeed on the same level as those from middle or upper class neighborhoods. In this case, providing free after school activities, safe spaces for their feelings and learning, and places to express their creativity would be a good place to start.

Works Citied

Mcbride-Murry, V. (2011) “Neighborhood Poverty and Adolescent Development.” Journal of Research on Adolescence, 21(1), 114-128

Steinberg, L. & Sheffield Morris, A. (2001) “Adolescent Development.” Annual Review of Psychology, 52:83-110