Neighborhood Adversity and Externalizing Problems: the Moderating Role of Educational Opportunities

This study examines the relationship between neighborhood adversity, educational opportunities, and externalizing problems in early adolescents using baseline data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. Participants were aged 9 to 10 years (M = 9 years, 11 months), with 52.7 percent male; 60.58 percent racialized as White (N = 5577), 16.21% as Black (N = 1492), and 23.21% as Hispanic/Latinx (N = 2137). Descriptive statistics provided mean-level differences in exposure to neighborhood adversity and access to educational opportunities among the different groups. Regression models assessed the main and interactive effects of adversity and educational opportunities on externalizing problems, controlling for material hardship, parent education, sex, and age. Neighborhood disadvantage contributed to externalizing problems across groups, and there was some evidence that educational opportunities buffered the impact of adversity for all groups, but the interactions differed in their strengths based on other considerations. These findings suggest that educational opportunities and adversity interact differently across racialized groups, highlighting the need for policies that account for these nuanced experiences.