The Protective Effects of Neighborhood Collective Efficacy on British Children Growing Up in Deprivation: A Developmental Analysis

This article reports on the influence of neighborhood-level deprivation and collective efficacy on children's antisocial behavior between the ages of 5 and 10 years. Latent growth curve modeling was applied to characterize the developmental course of antisocial behavior among children in the E-Risk Longitudinal Twin Study, an epidemiological cohort of 2,232 children. Children in deprived versus affluent neighborhoods had higher levels of antisocial behavior at school entry (24.1 vs. 20.5, p <.001) and a slower rate of decline from involvement in antisocial behavior between the ages of 5 and 10 (-0.54 vs. -0.78, p <.01). Neighborhood collective efficacy was negatively associated with levels of antisocial behavior at school entry (r = -.10, p <.01) but Only in deprived neighborhoods; this relationship held after controlling for neighborhood problems and family-level factors. Collective efficacy did not predict the rate of change in antisocial behavior between the ages of 5 and 10. Findings suggest that neighborhood collective efficacy may have a protective effect on children living in deprived contexts.