The main objectives of the Seminar Series are to review theories about how neighbourhoods might shape individual lives; to increase our understanding of methods suitable to analyse neighbourhood effects – free of bias – and the limitations of these methods; to identify potential data sources and data needs; to assess the current state of robust evidence on neighbourhood effects; to bring together researchers from diverse fields in neighbourhood research to increase our understanding of how neighbourhoods function, develop, change, and might affect individual lives; and to discuss the implications of the seminar outcomes for policy designed to tackle poverty.
We will organise three 2-day seminars with about 35 participants in St Andrews, Manchester and Glasgow. If you are interested in attending one of the seminars, please email to mail@neighbourhoodeffects.org. Places are limited and participation is by invitation only.
Each seminar will have a set of presentations from established and emerging researchers, and will be concluded with a led discussion. In time, the PowerPoint presentations and papers presented at the seminars will be made available through this website. It is anticipated that a selection of the papers from the seminars will be published as either an edited journal volume or an edited book. More details will follow. To stimulate cross-fertilisation of ideas, capacity building, and networking over disciplinary boundaries each seminar will cover different questions related to neighbourhood effects research. The following seminars are planned:
Day 1: What are the possible mechanisms behind neighbourhood effects; what domains or areas of life can they affect; which life stages are most important and are there long term effects; what is a meaningful definition of the neighbourhood; what is the current evidence on neighbourhood effects?
This first seminar sets the agenda for the Series and will provide some of the necessary theoretical and international empirical background from both quantitative and qualitative approaches to neighbourhood effects research.
| Program (all speakers confirmed) Day 1: Thursday, 4th February 2010 | |
|---|---|
| 10:30 – 11:00 | Registration and Coffee |
| 11:00 – 11:10 | Opening and Welcome |
| 11:10 – 12:05 | George Galster – The mechanism(s) of neighbourhood effects: theory, evidence and policy implications |
| 12:05 – 13:00 | Mario Small –Ethnographic evidence and neighbourhood effects: strong and weak approaches to testing propositions from the field |
| 13:00 – 14:00 | Lunch |
| 14:00 – 14:30 | Fenne Pinkster – Neighbourhood effects as unitended side effects: evidence from a qualitative case study |
| 14:30 – 15:00 | Lina Bergström – The impacts of residential mobility on measurements of neighbourhood effects |
| 15:00 – 15:55 | Ruth Lupton – Neighbourhood effects on teenage pregnancy: theory, data and evidence |
| 15:55 – 16:20 | Coffee |
| 16:20 – 17:00 | Ed Fieldhouse – Discussant |
| 17:00 – 18:00 | Open Discussion |
| 19:30 | Dinner |
Day 2: What are the main methodological - and data - challenges in neighbourhood effects research; what are the potential solutions and what are their limitations; how might existing data sources be adapted or developed?
This seminar day will focus on interdisciplinary approaches to neighbourhood effects research and aims to provide a state-of-the-art overview of quantitative techniques including IV and fixed effect approaches, quasi-experiments and longitudinal modelling. This first seminar will end with a review of data needs, in particular with regards to spatial referencing and data linkage in major longitudinal data sets.
| Program (all speakers confirmed) Day 2: Friday, 5th February 2010 | |
|---|---|
| 9:00 – 9:15 | Coffee |
| 9:15 – 10:10 | Gindo Tampubolon - Neighbourhood Social Capital and Individual Mental Health |
| 10:10 – 11.05 | Paul Cheshire – Policies for Mixed Communities: Still looking for evidence |
| 11:05 – 11:30 | Coffee |
| 11:30 – 12:00 | David Manley – Neighbourhood effects: a longitudinal perspective |
| 12:00 – 12:30 | Venla Bernelius – Neighbourhood effects as real estate |
| 12:30 – 13:30 | Lunch |
| 13:30 – 14:00 | Geoff Meen – Discussant |
| 14:00 – 15:00 | Open Discussion |
| 15:00 | Close |
Day 1: How can we best understand the processes behind segregation & neighbourhood change?
The segregation literature tends to ignore how neighbourhoods change. This seminar identifies the separate contributions to (change in) ethnic and social composition of natural change, domestic and international migration, and residents' own changing characteristics.
| Program (all speakers confirmed) Day 1: Wednesday 8th September, 2010 | |
|---|---|
| 10:30 – 11:00 | Registration and Coffee |
| 11:00 – 11:10 | Opening and Welcome |
| 11:10 – 12:05 | Bill Clark - Neighborhood selection in large cities: how does selective mobility create neighborhood outcomes? |
| 12:05 – 13:00 | Nissa Finney - How ethnic mix changes and what this means for integration: understanding population dynamics of ethnic groups |
| 13:00 – 14:00 | Lunch |
| 14:00 – 14:30 | Felix Weinhardt - Neighbourhood quality and educational achievements |
| 14:30 – 15:00 | Stephen Jivraj - Mechanisms of socioeconomic neighbourhood change: An analysis of School Census data in England |
| 15:00 – 15:55 | Ronald van Kempen - Urban restructuring, displaced households and neighbourhood change |
| 15:55 – 16:20 | Coffee |
| 16:20 – 17:00 | Beate Volker - Discussant |
| 17:00 – 18:00 | Open Discussion |
| 19:30 | Dinner |
Day 2: How might we integrate population and income dynamics of deprived neighbourhoods in econometric models of neighbourhood effects?
This seminar will explore the dynamics of deprived neighbourhoods in terms of population turnover and selective mobility into and out of deprived neighbourhoods and identify how neighbourhood characteristics and neighbourhood dynamics affect residential mobility choices. It will then explore how selective mobility has been, and can be, integrated within econometric models of neighbourhood effects.
| Program (all speakers confirmed) Day 2: Thursday 9th September 2010 | |
|---|---|
| 9:00 – 9:15 | Coffee |
| 9:15 – 10:10 | Geoff Meen - The causes of long-term urban and neighbourhood change |
| 10:10 – 11.05 | Manuel Aalbers - How do mortgage lenders influence neighbourhood dynamics? |
| 11:05 – 11:30 | Coffee |
| 11:30 – 12:00 | Matthieu Permentier - Neighbourhood reputations and moving behaviour |
| 12:00 – 12:55 | Nick Bailey & Helen Barnes - Spatial segregation and population dynamics: evidence, data sources and research priorities |
| 12:55– 14:00 | Lunch |
| 14:30 – 15:00 | Ludi Simpson - Discussant |
| 15:00 – 16:00 | Open Discussion |
| 16:00 | Close |
Day 1: How can we understand the social dynamics of deprived neighbourhoods?
We will explore the social functioning of neighbourhoods, and how neighbourhoods are shaped by dynamics in social capital, social cohesion, community attachment, social (dis)organization, and neighbour¬hood reputations–all important intervening variables for many theories of neighbourhood effects.
Day 2: What are the policy implications of current neighbourhood effects evidence; how do policy makers view the nature of neighbourhood effects; and are current policy judgements evidence based?
This seminar is designed to bring national policy makers and researchers together with contributions from government bodies and key stakeholders. Current area based policies will be analysed and the policy implications of current neighbourhood effects evidence will be discussed. The day will end with a discussion of how to keep the UK at the cutting edge of neighbourhood effects and related social science research with an emphasis on discussing new opportunities created by ESRC (and other) investments in longitudinal data (such as the UK household longitudinal study - Understanding Society; British Cohort Study; LS; SLS).
More Details to follow…
NeighbourhoodEffects.org is a Centre for Housing Research project hosting a collaborative ESRC Seminar Series run by:
Centre for Housing Research, The Observatory, Buchanan Gardens, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9LZ. Email: mail@neighbourhoodeffects.org
