The Neighborhood Social Environment and Early Adolescent Student Engagement: A Scoping Review

Background and Purpose: Developmental and educational contexts in early adolescence can influence youths’ long-term trajectories. The neighborhood social environment can shape youths’ sense of safety in and around their home, expose them to risk and protective factors in their day-to-day lives, and influence health and mental health outcomes. In the US, many deleterious neighborhood environments have been shaped by discriminatory housing policy, disproportionately impacting already marginalized populations including those living in poverty and youth of minoritized racial identities. Another important determinant of short- and long-term academic and mental health outcomes is student engagement, a multidimensional construct which concerns youths’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors towards school. In recognizing the salience of both the neighborhood social environment and student engagement to early adolescent outcomes, this scoping review aimed to investigate what is known about the relationship between these two constructs.

Methods: We conducted a systematic scoping review of the literature to assess what is known about the relationship between the neighborhood social environment and early adolescent student engagement, following the JBI methodology. Three social science databases (PsycInfo, ERIC, and Education Source) were searched for relevant literature, yielding 2,551 records published in English between 1994 and October 2023. Following deduplication and a title and abstract screen, we retrieved 79 records for full-text review and determined that 42 records were eligible for inclusion. We then systematically charted data from the included articles and analyzed the data using a narrative synthesis process.

Results: Most included studies used quantitative methods (93%), primarily employing regression analyses or structural equation modeling. Studies examined three aspects of the neighborhood social environment: neighborhood social processes, neighborhood resources, and crime, violence, and safety. Student engagement was measured in varied ways, most often as commitment to school, trouble behavior, and sense of academic competency. Few studies included the school context in their analysis. A significant direct relationship between the neighborhood and student engagement was found by most studies. Significant indirect relationships were also found between the neighborhood social environment and student engagement through the family, peer, school, and individual domains.

Conclusions and Implications: This review finds strong evidence of a positive relationship between the neighborhood social environment and early adolescent student engagement with more supportive, better resourced, safer neighborhood environments associated with higher levels of student engagement. More work is needed to examine how specific aspects of the neighborhood are differentially associated with each individual domain of student engagement. Future research should also investigate indirect mechanisms that may drive this relationship, and how school factors may moderate the association. This review adds support for an overhaul of larger-scale housing policy towards improving neighborhood social environments, and smaller-scale policy like increased funding for educational liaisons in public housing developments and maintenance of high-quality community spaces in marginalized neighborhoods. School social workers can leverage this knowledge to better support students and advocate for community-building practices within schools and in the larger communities in which schools are located. This review implicates both direct support for youth living in adverse neighborhood environments and community-level interventions.