Neighborhood Disorder and Children’s Withdrawal among Low-income Families
Yawo Bessa

Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of neighborhood disorder on children’s withdrawal. It contributes to the extant literature on the relationship between neighborhood and children’s behavior by focusing on withdrawal symptoms instead of the global and all-encompassing concept of internalizing behaviors. Children’s withdrawal, the dependent variable, is measured with a subscale of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). Neighborhood disorder, the independent variable, is a scale of 10 items describing problems in neighborhood. The data came from the third wave of a three-city study collected between 2005 and 2006 in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio with a sample size N = 1835. Regression analysis shows that neighborhood disorder and age of child are significantly and positively associated with and children’s withdrawal. However, marital status and instrumental support of the parents are significantly and negatively correlated with children’s withdrawal. The study lends support to the postmodern theoretical perspective of Bauman.

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