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Mapping Residents' Perceptions of Neighborhood Boundaries: A Methodological Note
Author(s) -
Coulton Claudia J.,
Korbin Jill,
Chan Tsui,
Su Marilyn
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1023/a:1010303419034
Subject(s) - census , health psychology , boundary (topology) , perception , geography , public health , psychology , demography , sociology , medicine , population , mathematics , mathematical analysis , nursing , neuroscience
Neighborhood influences on children and youth are the subjects of increasing numbers of studies, but there is concern that these investigations may be biased, because they typically rely on census‐based units as proxies for neighborhoods. This pilot study tested several methods of defining neighborhood units based on maps drawn by residents, and compared the results with census definitions of neighborhoods. When residents' maps were used to create neighborhood boundary definitions, the resulting units covered different space and produced different social indicator values than did census‐defined units. Residents' agreement about their neighborhoods' boundaries differed among the neighborhoods studied. This pilot study suggests that discrepancies between researcher and resident‐defined neighborhoods are a possible source of bias in studies of neighborhood effects.