Search Results

Author: Gordon, Rachel A.
Resulting in 10 citations.
1. Chase-Lansdale, P. Lindsay
Gordon, Rachel A.
Economic Hardship and the Development of Five- and Six-Year-Olds: Neighborhood and Regional Perspectives
Child Development 67,6 (December 1996): 3338-3367.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1996.tb01917.x/abstract
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Blackwell Publishing, Inc. => Wiley Online
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Child Development; Childhood Education, Early; Children, School-Age; Cognitive Development; Education; Ethnic Studies; Family Influences; Geocoded Data; Income; Neighborhood Effects; Occupations; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Racial Differences; Racial Studies; Regions; Socioeconomic Factors; Socioeconomic Status (SES)

The present study examines the association between neighborhood characteristics and the development of 5- and 6-year-olds. We also explore how region might moderate the effects of neighborhoods on children, thus considering both larger (regional) and smaller (community) contexts of families. We find that structural aspects of the neighborhood at the census tract level are associated with child development in the early school-age period. For the sample as a whole neighborhood factors play a role in both cognitive and socioemotional outcomes, even when family factors are controlled. Yet only modest support for neighborhood influences on child development is evident in our main effects models. It appears that neighborhood influences on child development are underestimated or masked unless the associations are examined separately by two areas of the United States: the Midwest and Northeast versus the South and West. Significant associations between neighborhood variables and children's development are seen in the Northeastern and Midwestern regions, but less so in the Southern and Western regions of the United States. Greater economic and social resources as measured by average neighborhood SES (income, education, occupation) and greater ethnic congruity as measured by more neighbors of the same racial heritage as the child are related to higher cognitive functioning, but only in the Northeast and Midwest. Furthermore, children in these regions show more competent behavioral functioning when the relative presence of adults to children in the neighborhood is higher. In these regions, African-American but not white children show higher levels of behavior problems when community male joblessness rates are higher. We speculate about processes that might underlie these neighborhood and regional effects and point to directions for further research. (Copyright 1996 by the Society for Research in Child Development. All rights reserved.)
Bibliography Citation
Chase-Lansdale, P. Lindsay and Rachel A. Gordon. "Economic Hardship and the Development of Five- and Six-Year-Olds: Neighborhood and Regional Perspectives." Child Development 67,6 (December 1996): 3338-3367.
2. Chase-Lansdale, P. Lindsay
Gordon, Rachel A.
Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne
Klebanov, Pamela Kato
Neighborhood and Family Influences on the Intellectual and Behavioral Competence of Preschool and Early School-Age Children
In: Neighborhood Poverty: Context and Consequences for Children, Volume 1. G. Duncan, J. Brooks-Gunn, and J. Aber, eds., New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation; 1997: 79-118
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
Keyword(s): Age at Birth; Children, Academic Development; Children, Poverty; Children, Preschool; Children, School-Age; Cognitive Ability; Family Income; Family Resources; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP); Maternal Employment; Neighborhood Effects; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)

Chapter 4: In this chapter we examine neighborhood-and family-level effects on the functioning of preschool (three- and four-year-old) and early school-age (five- and six-year-old) children. We use data from the Children of the NLSY, a survey of children based on a national survey of adolescents and young adults begun in 1979, and from the IHDP, a large eight-site study of an early educational intervention for premature and low-birth-weight children and their parents.
Bibliography Citation
Chase-Lansdale, P. Lindsay, Rachel A. Gordon, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn and Pamela Kato Klebanov. "Neighborhood and Family Influences on the Intellectual and Behavioral Competence of Preschool and Early School-Age Children" In: Neighborhood Poverty: Context and Consequences for Children, Volume 1. G. Duncan, J. Brooks-Gunn, and J. Aber, eds., New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation; 1997: 79-118
3. Gordon, Rachel A.
Confidential Data Files Linked to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 Cohort: A Case Study
Presented: Washington, DC, Workshop on Confidentiality of and Access to Research Data Files, October 1999.
Also: http://www7.nationalacademies.org/cnstat/workshop_confidentiality.html#P42_4124
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Child Care; Children, Well-Being; Geocoded Data; Neighborhood Effects; Residence

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Paper presented at the "Improving Access to and Confidentiality of Research Data". http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=9958&page=59

The paper provides three examples of the use of confidential geocodes attached to the Children of the NLSY79: (1) collaborative work on the general association between neighborhood characteristics and young children's well-being, and how such associations may be mediated by family processes, (2) a study of the ways in which such associations may depend on the region of the United States in which the family lives, and (3) a study considering the associations between local child care availability and families' arrangements for maternal employment and child care..Throughout, I note several reasons why these analyses were uniquely possible with the geocoded Children of the NLSY79. In short, in contrast to what had typically been small, localized studies of child development, the Children of the NLSY79 was the first attempt to provide a large, national sample of young children with detailed psychological assessments. With the family's physical location of residence geocoded, these data provided a unique opportunity to have sufficient sample sizes and sufficient geographic variation to examine how neighborhood context mattered for child development within different sub-groups of conceptual interest, including children of different gender and ethnicity and families living in different regions of the county and in communities of varying urbanicity. Our collaborative research revealed that looking within these sub-groups indeed mattered. Namely, we found that associations differed by ethnicity and gender in some cases, that associations between neighborhood characteristics and children's cognitive and behavioral well-being were stronger in the Northeast and Midwest than in the South and West regions of the United States, and that there were both co nsistencies and differences by urbanicity in the associations between the availability of child care centers and families' use of center-based child care.

Bibliography Citation
Gordon, Rachel A. "Confidential Data Files Linked to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 Cohort: A Case Study." Presented: Washington, DC, Workshop on Confidentiality of and Access to Research Data Files, October 1999.
4. Gordon, Rachel A.
Confidential Data Files Linked to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 Cohort: A Case Study
In: Improving Access to and Confidentiality of Research Data: Report of a Workshop. C. Mackie and N. Bradburn eds. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2000: p. 59.
Also: http://books.nap.edu/books/0309071801/html/index.html
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: National Academy Press
Keyword(s): Child Care; Children, Well-Being; Neighborhood Effects; Residence

This is a Print-On-Demand Title, http://www.nap.edu/catalog/9958.html.

Prior to the workshop, the papers that were prepared and presented at the workshop were available electronically from this website. However, so that the authors may incorporate revisions or publish their papers elsewhere, we have removed the papers. Copies of the versions of the workshop papers that were distributed at the workshop are still available in hard copy. Please call the Committee office, 202-334-3096, to request a copy of any or all of these papers.

Bibliography Citation
Gordon, Rachel A. "Confidential Data Files Linked to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 Cohort: A Case Study" In: Improving Access to and Confidentiality of Research Data: Report of a Workshop. C. Mackie and N. Bradburn eds. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2000: p. 59.
5. Gordon, Rachel A.
Measuring Constructs in Family Science: How Can Item Response Theory Improve Precision and Validity?
Journal of Marriage and Family 77,1 (February 2015): 147-176.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.12157/abstract
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Blackwell Publishing, Inc. => Wiley Online
Keyword(s): Data Quality/Consistency; Scale Construction; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT

This article provides family scientists with an understanding of contemporary measurement perspectives and the ways in which item response theory (IRT) can be used to develop measures with desired evidence of precision and validity for research uses. The article offers a nontechnical introduction to some key features of IRT, including its orientation toward locating items along an underlying dimension and toward estimating precision of measurement for persons with different levels of that same construct. It also offers a didactic example of how the approach can be used to refine conceptualization and operationalization of constructs in the family sciences, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (n = 2,732). Three basic models are considered: (a) the Rasch and (b) two-parameter logistic models for dichotomous items and (c) the Rating Scale Model for multicategory items. Throughout, the author highlights the potential for researchers to elevate measurement to a level on par with theorizing and testing about relationships among constructs.
Bibliography Citation
Gordon, Rachel A. "Measuring Constructs in Family Science: How Can Item Response Theory Improve Precision and Validity?" Journal of Marriage and Family 77,1 (February 2015): 147-176.
6. Gordon, Rachel A.
Multigenerational Coresidence and Welfare Policy
Journal of Community Psychology 27,5 (September 1999): 525-549
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Office of University Partnerships - OUP
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Child Care; Grandmothers; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Household Composition; Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Peers/Peer influence/Peer relations

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

As part of the 1996 federal welfare reform, lawmakers required unmarried, minor parents to live with their own parents (or another qualified adult). This paper considers a few key issues related to this requirement: (1) Prior to the living arrangements requirement, did income from Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) lead teenage mothers to move out of their parents' home? (2) Did young mothers who stayed at home do better or worse that their peers who moved out? (3) How solid is the research evidence about these topics? Measurement barriers in census data prior to the mid-1990s and in state program administrative data, in the past and still today, impede identification of all teenage parents who live at home. Yet, even given this undercount, available data indicates that most unmarried, minor mothers lived with their parents, or other adult relatives, prior to the 1996 welfare reform. Although the research based on the topic is small, there is not clear evidence that the small fraction of young mothers who moved out of their parents' home did so because they could use AFDC income. Consistent descriptive evidence does suggest that living in a three-generational household is associated with teenage mothers' greater economic self-sufficiency; at the same time, however, coresiding teenage mothers appear to exhibit poorer parenting skills and the effects on their children and their own parents remain little understood. These findings are discussed in relation to the minor parent policy, and recommendations for future research are made including: (1) collection of data that better identifies minor parent families living in senior parents' households, (2) using whole-family perspectives that look beyond the minor mother to the well-being of her parents, children, and other family members, (3) studies that consider the selection of teenage mothers into various living arrangements when studying their consequences, and (4) intensive studies of positive and negative aspects of family functioning and social networks when minor mothers live in various living arrangements.
Bibliography Citation
Gordon, Rachel A. "Multigenerational Coresidence and Welfare Policy." Journal of Community Psychology 27,5 (September 1999): 525-549.
7. Gordon, Rachel A.
Chase-Lansdale, P. Lindsay
Availability of Child Care in the United States: A Description and Analysis of Data Sources
Working Paper, Department of Sociology and Institute of Government and Public Affairs, University of Illinois at Chicago and Northwestern University, 2000.
Also: http://wf.educ.msu.edu/working_abs.html#0016
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Department of Sociology, University of Illinois at Chicago
Keyword(s): Census of Population; Child Care; Maternal Employment

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Lack of high quality, affordable child care is an oft cited impediment to a maageable work-family balance. This is particularly true given demographic trends toward more dual earner families and employed unmarried parents in the U.S., and given political focus on reducing long term welfare dependency through parents' employment. However, researchers have lacked data about the availability of child care in communities, restricting research on these topics. In this paper, we lay out a conceptual framework regarding the importance of child care availability in a community, considering potential variation based on the urbanicity of the area and the economic resources of its residents. We then describe and evaluate several indicators of child care availability that have been released by the U.S. Census Bureau over the last 15 years. We examine the validity of these data for measuring child care availability using community- and individual-level analyses. We discuss the data sources' benefits and limitations, and point to directions for future data developments and research.
Bibliography Citation
Gordon, Rachel A. and P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale. "Availability of Child Care in the United States: A Description and Analysis of Data Sources." Working Paper, Department of Sociology and Institute of Government and Public Affairs, University of Illinois at Chicago and Northwestern University, 2000.
8. Gordon, Rachel A.
Chase-Lansdale, P. Lindsay
Availability of Child Care in the United States: A Description and Analysis of Data Sources
Demography 38, 2 (May 2001): 299-316.
Also: http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/demography/v038/38.2gordon.html
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Census of Population; Child Care; Maternal Employment

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Lack of high quality, affordable child care is an oft cited impediment to a maageable work-family balance. This is particularly true given demographic trends toward more dual earner families and employed unmarried parents in the U.S., and given political focus on reducing long term welfare dependency through parents' employment. However, researchers have lacked data about the availability of child care in communities, restricting research on these topics. In this paper, we lay out a conceptual framework regarding the importance of child care availability in a community, considering potential variation based on the urbanicity of the area and the economic resources of its residents. We then describe and evaluate several indicators of child care availability that have been released by the U.S. Census Bureau over the last 15 years. We examine the validity of these data for measuring child care availability using community- and individual-level analyses. We discuss the data sources' benefits and limitations, and point to directions for future data developments and research.
Bibliography Citation
Gordon, Rachel A. and P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale. "Availability of Child Care in the United States: A Description and Analysis of Data Sources." Demography 38, 2 (May 2001): 299-316.
9. Gordon, Rachel A.
Chase-Lansdale, P. Lindsay
Women's Participation in Market Work and the Availability of Child Care in the United States
Working Paper No. 99-05, NORC and the University of Chicago, 1999
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Opinion Research Center - NORC
Keyword(s): Child Care; Geocoded Data; Labor Force Participation; Maternal Employment; Simultaneity; Work Hours/Schedule

Also: Presented: New York, NY, Population Association of America Annual Meetings, March 1999.

This paper moves beyond the typical correlates of individual mothers' decisions to participate in market work and to use non-maternal child care by examining how child care availability in the community relates to families' arrangements for employment and child care in communities of varying income level and population density. We measure center child care availability in all U.S. ZIP codes using several business-level data sources (Economic Census, ZIP code Business Patterns) and a Special Tabulation of the 1990 Decennial Census, the latter of which also provides an estimate of family day care availability. Descriptive analyses suggest that center care is more available when both a sufficient population base and a source of income (private of subsidies) are present, as in low and high income urban areas. In contrast, family day care is most available in middle income, non-metropolitan areas. Using data for 3- to 6-year olds in the geocoded Children of the NLSY data set, we (1) jointly predict whether a woman works in the market and whether she places her child in another's care and (2) simultaneously predict the number of hours employed mothers' work and the hours their children spend in relative care, center-based care, and family day care. Findings suggest that available care may be necessary for some mothers to enter the market work or to select a type of child care, especially in the non-metropolitan areas of the U.S.

Bibliography Citation
Gordon, Rachel A. and P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale. "Women's Participation in Market Work and the Availability of Child Care in the United States." Working Paper No. 99-05, NORC and the University of Chicago, 1999.
10. Klebanov, Pamela Kato
Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne
Chase-Lansdale, P. Lindsay
Gordon, Rachel A.
Are Neighborhood Effects on Young Children Mediated by Features of the Home Environment?
In: Neighborhood Poverty: Context and Consequences for Children, Volume 1. G. Duncan, J. Brooks-Gunn, and J. Aber, eds., New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation; 1997: 119-145
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
Keyword(s): Age at Birth; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Children, Academic Development; Children, Poverty; Children, School-Age; Cognitive Ability; Family Income; Family Resources; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP); Maternal Employment; Neighborhood Effects; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading)

Chapter 5: Our goal in this chapter is to extend chapter 4's analyses in several ways in order to understand whether or not neighborhood of residence is linked to the actual environments of children's homes, not just to the family's income and educational resources...This chapter has three aims. The first is to look at how neighborhood composition is correlated with indicators in the home environment and cultural characteristics of the young children's mothers. Our measures include the cognitive stimulation provided to the child in the home, the physical environment of the home, the mother's warmth toward the child, the mother's mental health, the mother's coping style, and the social support received by the mother...The second aim of this chapter is to see whether or not the neighborhood effects on child outcomes reported in chapter 4 are mediated by the family-level process variables just specified...Our final aim is to go beyond examining mediated effects to explore a few likely moderated effects. The ways in which the family resource variables operate may differ as a function of the type of neighborhoods in which families reside.
Bibliography Citation
Klebanov, Pamela Kato, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale and Rachel A. Gordon. "Are Neighborhood Effects on Young Children Mediated by Features of the Home Environment?" In: Neighborhood Poverty: Context and Consequences for Children, Volume 1. G. Duncan, J. Brooks-Gunn, and J. Aber, eds., New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation; 1997: 119-145