The Study
Dr. Stephen Raudenbush, professor in the Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Special Education, was part of a study that surveyed more than 8,000 Chicago residents and studied 343 neighborhoods in an effort to understand why neighborhoods vary greatly in levels of criminal victimization and homicide. Although the 343 neighborhoods studied were predominately white, African-American or Latino, others were mixed in racial and ethnic composition. In addition to the interviews, Dr. Raudenbush and his colleagues from Harvard University and the University of Chicago gathered data from the census and police reports.

The Findings
The report issued by the researchers showed that lower rates of violence occur in urban neighborhoods characterized by what the investigators called "collective efficacy," or mutual trust and willingness of neighborhood residents to work together to solve problems. Raudenbush and his colleagues argue that collective efficacy offers a deeper understanding of the social mechanisms that have linked neighborhood poverty and instability, in many previous studies, with high crime rates. The researchers have been able to provide concrete evidence that the quality of the relationships and social cohesion in urban neighborhoods predict rates of violence. Among the findings was that the homicide rate in neighborhoods with a high degree of collective efficacy was 40 percent lower than in similar areas without the same type of interaction. The study has broken new ground in that it has developed reliable and valid methods for studying characteristics in neighborhoods. Using the mass of information from police crime reports, census data, and the more than 8,000 in-home interviews, the researchers were able to develop a portrait of individual neighborhoods and their levels of cohesion and involvement. 

What It Means to You
Given the study's findings, to what extent is collective efficacy woven into the fabric of the communities in which your schools are located? Is the neighborhood cohesion or lack of it affecting students and their performance in school? Dr. Raudenbush and his colleagues hope that this type of information will help decision-makers and local residents to think in new ways concerning the means to prevent violent behavior in our young. The findings make a strong case for pursuing the idea of neighborhood collective efficacy as a key factor in society's efforts to control violence. They also raise the question of how collective efficacy among teachers and administrators might affect student behavior within schools.

More Information
You can read the study in the August 15 issue of Science. The citation is: Sampson, R.J., Raudenbush, S.W., Earls, F., "Neighborhood and Violent Crime: A Multiple Study of Collective Efficacy," Science, 1997 Aug. 15; 277(5328): 918-924. The magazine can also be accessed on the World Wide Web at www.sciencemag.org.

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