Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Neighborhoods provide resources that may affect children’s development. Indeed, a growing body of research finds that growing up in neighborhoods with concentrated disadvantage affects the educational outcomes of the children growing up in such environments, above and beyond their own household disadvantage (Alexander, Entwisle, & Olson, 2014; Chetty, Hendren, & Katz, 2015; Chetty & Hendren, 2015; Frech & Kimbro, 2011; Wolf et al., 2016). To date, one study has examined descriptive associations between neighborhood poverty and children’s academic skills and behavior at kindergarten entry: Wolf et al. (2016) found that children in the highest-poverty areas started school nearly a year behind children in the lowest-poverty neighborhoods.

However, it remains unclear to what degree associations between neighborhood disadvantage and outcomes persist into elementary school, and whether household and neighborhood resources interact to affect children’s outcomes. Following Kuperschmidt et al. (1995) and Gordon et al. (2003), family and neighborhood income may jointly affect children’s development as: (1) an additive or risk model, in that family and neighborhood income would contribute independently to children’s outcomes, following a cumulative development framework; (2) a potentiator or protective model, which would predict that low-poverty neighborhoods would improve the academics of poor children but not higher-income children; or (3) a person-environment fit, such that a mismatch between children’s home and neighborhood environments would predict poorer outcomes.

Given the harmful effects of poverty experienced early in life (Duncan et al., 2013) and the growing proportion of children living in high-poverty communities in the United States (Bishaw, 2014), it is important to understand how the experience of neighborhood poverty in the kindergarten entry year predicts children’s achievement and development in elementary school.

Using data from the 2010-2011 Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (N = 15,100 children), merged with census tract-level poverty data from the U.S. Census’s American Community Survey, this study examines associations between neighborhood poverty and children’s math, reading, and behavioral outcomes at kindergarten, 1^st, and 2^nd grades. Results indicate that the poverty level of children’s residential neighborhood at preschool is predictive of poorer achievement (but not behavior) outcomes, and these associations persist into 2^nd grade. The magnitude of these effects diminish after controlling for a host of background characteristics, but remain significant. Effect sizes are relatively small but meaningful: children living in high poverty communities (with poverty rates 40% or greater) score about one-tenth to one-fifth of a standard deviation below those in low poverty communities (with poverty rates less than 14%) in math and reading. Even those in moderate-low poverty neighborhoods score about one-twentieth to one-tenth of a standard deviation lower than those in low-poverty neighborhoods, suggesting a gradient association. Further, these relationships are stronger among children in poor vs. non-poor households, supporting a potentiator model. Findings are discussed within the study’s data limitations and descriptive nature. In sum, this study suggests that neighborhood poverty may be an important factor in predicting academic achievement, especially among children in poor households. Findings have implications for place-based research and policies in the United States and abroad.