Monograph Matters

Development unfolds in numerous contexts. Neighborhood effects research has long examined development within neighborhoods contexts, but two recent perspectives have emerged from neighborhood effects research that, combined, are theoretically and empirically generative for understanding development in context.  Cultural-developmental researchers are advancing neighborhood effects scholarship that recognizes the ways that racial, ethnic, cultural, and immigrant social positions matter for neighborhoods and for youths’ development. Activity space researchers recognize that residential neighborhoods have important implications for broader activity spaces – the set of locations and settings to which youth are regularly exposed – and are using newer technologies and geographic frameworks to assess exposure to residential neighborhood and extra-neighborhood environments. Unfortunately, the two perspectives have been advancing largely independently. Thus, this monograph’s aim is to integrate scholarship on residential neighborhoods, cultural development, and activity spaces to advance a framework that can support a better understanding of development in context for diverse groups.