Citation
Turchi, Jennifer & Noonan, Mary (2010). Is it "All in the Family"? The role of neighborhoods in the relationship between family structure and friendship groups. 2010 Add Health Users Conference. Bethesda, MD: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Carolina Population Center.Abstract
Previous research finds that parents influence the types of friends their adolescents include in their networks, even after controlling for adolescents own characteristics and behaviors (Knoester et al. 2006). Family structure is one variable that is strongly associated with adolescents’ friendship networks. Research shows that, compared to adolescents from two-parent households, those who live in single-father households have less conventional friends (Turchi 2010). These differences are partially explained by variation in parenting practices across family structure. Using Wave I Add Health and neighborhood contextual data, I extend this work by exploring whether variation in neighborhood quality explains the remaining differences. Neighborhood quality is likely an important explanatory variable since single-parent families live in lower quality neighborhoods (Broman et al. 2008), and neighborhood quality is associated with important childhood outcomes (Harding 2009). This research tests if neighborhood characteristics help explain why adolescents in single-father homes have less conventional friends, compared to those in intact families. Single-father families are more prevalent, yet we still know very little about the consequences of growing up in single-father homes.URL
https://addhealth.cpc.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/docs/news/FINAL%202010%20Add%20Health%20Users%20Conference%20Abstracts.pdfReference Type
Conference proceedingBook Title
2010 Add Health Users ConferenceAuthor(s)
Turchi, JenniferNoonan, Mary