This study examines neighborhood influences on alcohol, cigarette and marijuana use among a predominantly Latino middle school sample. Drawing on theories of immigrant adaptation and segmented assimilation, we test whether neighborhood immigrant, ethnic, and socioeconomic composition, violent crime, residential instability, and family structure have differential effects on substance use among youth from different ethnic and acculturation backgrounds. Data are drawn from self-reports from 3,721 7 th grade students attending 35 Phoenix, Arizona middle schools. Analysis was restricted to the two largest ethnic groups, Latino students of Mexican heritage and non-Hispanic Whites. After adjusting for individual-level characteristics and school-level random effects, only one neighborhood effect was found for the sample overall, an undesirable impact of neighborhood residential instability on recent cigarette use. Sub-group analyses by individual ethnicity and acculturation showed more patterned neighborhood effects. Living in neighborhoods with high proportions of recent immigrants was protective against alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use for Latino students at different acculturation levels, while living in predominantly Mexican heritage neighborhoods (mostly non-immigrants) was a risk factor for alcohol and marijuana use for less acculturated Latinos. There were scattered effects of neighborhood poverty and crime, which predicted more cigarette and alcohol use, respectively, but only among more acculturated Latinos. Inconsistent effects confined to bilingual and more acculturated Latinos were found for the neighborhood's proportion of single mother families and its residential instability. No neighborhood effects emerged for non-Hispanic White students. Results suggested that disadvantaged neighborhoods increase substance use among some ethnic minority youth, but immigrant enclaves appear to provide countervailing protections.Keywords neighborhood effects; substance use; adolescents; Mexican Americans; acculturation For nearly a century the neighborhood social context has been conceptualized and investigated empirically as an important influence on the behavior of individuals. Numerous studies have tested competing theories about neighborhood effects on substance abuse among adolescents (Duncan, Duncan and Strycker 2002 1996; Elliott, et. al., 1996). Some studies have delved into differential neighborhood impacts on African Americans and European Americans (e.g., Crowder and South, 2003; Finch, Kolody and Vega, 1999). However, research is relatively sparse on the impact of neighborhoods on Latinos specifically, and how neighborhood effects operate in cities where Latinos are the largest cultural minority group (e.g., Finch, et al., 2000; Sastry and Pebley, 2003;Zatz and Portillos 2000). Thus, there is little understanding about how factors specific to predominantly Latino neighborhoods-particularly the influence of Mexican culture, immigrant populations and acculturation-may influence adolescent substanc...

In 1999 more than 7 billion pounds of toxic chemicals were released into the environment by industrial facilities in the United States. This was the emitted component of more than 29 billion pounds of production-related waste generated by industrial firms reporting to the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) (Environmental Defense, 2001). The monitoring and regulating of hazardous industrial emissions and waste-disposal activities are elements in a series of federal mandates to manage technological risks, protect the public, and mitigate environmental impacts. Nevertheless, the adequacy of these efforts, especially as they are implemented at the local level, has been repeatedly challenged by grassroots citizen groups concerned about health and environmental

Few researchers have investigated who lives near the worst polluting facilities. In this study, we test for disparate impact from hazardous industrial and infrastructure facilities on racial/ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged, the working class, and manufacturing workers in the nine-county Philadelphia MSA. Copyright (c) 2007 Southwestern Social Science Association.

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This article examines key aspects of the school environment -its composition by ethnicity and acculturation -as important social contexts for understanding Mexican immigrant and Mexican American adolescents' drug use norms and behaviors. Results are presented based on surveys completed by Mexican-background students from 35 Phoenix. Arizona middle schools, whose enrollment ranged from a numerical minority to an overwhelming majority. Multivariate mixed models tested for the influence of school ethnic composition measures on substance use outcomes, while accounting for individual level predictors and for the nesting of data at the school level. The proportional representation of Latinos in the school was not a factor in an individual's drug use norms or drug use for the sample overall. Once students were broken down by acculturation status, however, ethnic composition had an effect. Less acculturated Mexican heritage students in schools with higher proportions of Latino students reported less substance use and less adherence to prodrug norms. Further investigation using other measures of ethnic composition suggested that these effects were attributable to the larger presence of less acculturated Latinos in the school rather than more acculturated Latino students. These school-level effects support the individual-level results indicating that less acculturated Mexican American students face less daunting substance use risks. The results suggest that ethnic group size, but not necessarily numerical predominance, matters and that within-group differences influence the effect of a particular ethnic group's presence in the school. In other words, the majority does not always rule. These findings are interpreted using the concepts of segmented assimilation and school level social capital.Because children spend large portions of their time at school, the school environment provides an important social context for them. Although some research has explored how schools' ethnic composition may structure the school environment and influence behavior, little attention has been given to the possible effects of school ethnic composition on substance use. Given that substance use varies by ethnicity (Wallace et al. 2003), it is possible that school ethnic composition operates through the school-level normative environment to influence individual youths' substance use. This study explores that possibility, testing whether and how Latino predominance in a school influences the substance use of Mexican heritage adolescents. We ask, does the majority rule?