Attainment and Adjustment in Two Geographical Areas

Abstract

It was found that emotional disorders, conduct disorders and specific reading retardation were all twice as common in ten-year-old children attending schools in an inner London borough as in children of the same age on the Isle of Wight. The correlates of these disorders in the two areas were investigated in order to explore possible reasons for these differences in prevalence. It was possible to identify four sets of variables (family discord, parental deviance, social disadvantage and certain school characteristics) which were associated with child disorder and deviance within both the two areas. As in almost all cases these same adverse factors were more commonly found in London, it may be concluded that the high rates of psychiatric disorder and specific reading retardation in London ten-year-olds are due in part to the fact that a relatively high proportion of London families experience marital discord and disruption, that many of the parents show mental disorder and antisocial behaviour, that families often live in poor social circumstances, and that the schools are more often characterized by a high rate of turnover in staff and pupils. The evidence suggests that these problems stemmed from living in an inner London borough, but further research is required to identify what it is about life in a metropolitan area that predisposes to the development of disorder and deviance.

Low Socioeconomic Status and Mental Disorders: A Longitudinal Study of Selection and Causation during Young Adulthood

“…Young adult cohorts have higher DSM period-prevalence rates than older cohorts in national cross-sectional studies (Kessler et al 1994;Robins and Regier 1991), and the Dunedin cohort analyzed in this study shows a large increase (almost two-fold) in the rates of mental disorder between ages 15 and 21 (Newman et al 1996). Family SES origins appear to play an influential role during this formative period, as the literature on child and adolescent psychopathology documents a significant association between SES and mental disorders (Costello et al 1997;Velez, Johnson, and Cohen 1989;Rutter et al 1974). However, this literature has yet to examine the association in detail and to separate causation from selection effects, and as such relatively little is known about the SESlinked factors that are associated with increased risk of mental disorder from adolescence to young adulthood (Institute of Medicine 1994).…”

Marital conflict and children's adjustment: A cognitive-contextual framework.

“…Although, as noted earlier, many of the studies reviewed by Emery (1982) actually measure marital satisfaction, others provide more direct evidence for the existence of an association between marital conflict and child behavior. The findings of two early studies indicate that openly expressed marital conflict is more closely associated with child problems than is marital dissatisfaction (Hetherington, Cox, & Cox, 1982;Rutter et al, 1974; see also Johnson & O'Leary, 1987). Hetherington et al (1982) found that only the degree of conflict to which children were exposed was related to adjustment problems in children.…”

“…"Encapsulated conflict;' or conflict of which children were not aware, was not associated with behavior problems. Similarly, child problems were found to be more highly associated with unhappy marriages that were quarrelsome, tense, and hostile than to unhappy marriages characterized by apathy and indifference (Rutter et al, 1974). Since Emery's 0982) review, more than a dozen studies have been published that specifically assess the relation between marital conflict and chilren's adjustment.…”

The Environment of Childhood Poverty

“…This contrasts with the 43% of high school mathematics teachers in more affluent school districts (Ingersoll, 1999). Student absenteeism and teacher turnover are greater in low-income schools (Lee & Croninger, 1994;Rutter et al, 1974), and as noted earlier, there is much less parental involvement in low-income schools (Lee & Croninger, 1994;U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999).…”