Dataset Information

Neighborhood effects on use of African-American Vernacular English.

ABSTRACT: African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is systematic, rooted in history, and important as an identity marker and expressive resource for its speakers. In these respects, it resembles other vernacular or nonstandard varieties, like Cockney or Appalachian English. But like them, AAVE can trigger discrimination in the workplace, housing market, and schools. Understanding what shapes the relative use of AAVE vs. Standard American English (SAE) is important for policy and scientific reasons. This work presents, to our knowledge, the first experimental estimates of the effects of moving into lower-poverty neighborhoods on AAVE use. We use data on non-Hispanic African-American youth (n = 629) from a large-scale, randomized residential mobility experiment called Moving to Opportunity (MTO), which enrolled a sample of mostly minority families originally living in distressed public housing. Audio recordings of the youth were transcribed and coded for the use of five grammatical and five phonological AAVE features to construct a measure of the proportion of possible instances, or tokens, in which speakers use AAVE rather than SAE speech features. Random assignment to receive a housing voucher to move into a lower-poverty area (the intention-to-treat effect) led youth to live in neighborhoods (census tracts) with an 11 percentage point lower poverty rate on average over the next 10-15 y and reduced the share of AAVE tokens by ∼3 percentage points compared with the MTO control group youth. The MTO effect on AAVE use equals approximately half of the difference in AAVE frequency observed between youth whose parents have a high school diploma and those whose parents do not.

SUBMITTER: Rickford JR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4586846 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Neighborhood effects on use of African-American Vernacular English.

Rickford John R JR Duncan Greg J GJ Gennetian Lisa A LA Gou Ray Yun RY Greene Rebecca R Katz Lawrence F LF Kessler Ronald C RC Kling Jeffrey R JR Sanbonmatsu Lisa L Sanchez-Ordoñez Andres E AE Sciandra Matthew M Thomas Ewart E Ludwig Jens J

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20150908 38

African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is systematic, rooted in history, and important as an identity marker and expressive resource for its speakers. In these respects, it resembles other vernacular or nonstandard varieties, like Cockney or Appalachian English. But like them, AAVE can trigger discrimination in the workplace, housing market, and schools. Understanding what shapes the relative use of AAVE vs. Standard American English (SAE) is important for policy and scientific reasons. This ...[more]

PMID: 26351663

Similar Datasets

Project description:ImportanceNeighborhood variables may be factors in the excessive burden of prostate cancer among African American men.ObjectiveTo examine associations between neighborhood deprivation, circulating immune-oncology markers, and prostate cancer among African American and European American men.Design, setting, and participantsA case-control study was conducted between January 1, 2005, and January 1, 2016. Participants included men with prostate cancer and age- and race-frequency-matched population controls. Participants were recruited at the Baltimore Veterans Affairs Medical Center and University of Maryland Medical Center; controls were obtained through the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration database. National Death Index follow-up was performed through December 31, 2020, and data analysis was conducted from February 1, 2022, through October 31, 2022.Exposures2000 Census-tract Neighborhood Deprivation Index as a standardized score.Main outcomes and measuresPrimary outcomes included prostate cancer, all-cause mortality, and disease-specific mortality. Secondary outcomes included the National Comprehensive Cancer Network risk score and serum proteomes for 82 immune-oncology markers with pathway annotation.ResultsParticipants included men with prostate cancer (n = 769: 405 African American, 364 European American men) and age- and race-frequency-matched population controls (n = 1023: 479 African American, 544 European American men). The median survival follow-up was 9.70 years (IQR, 5.77 years), with 219 deaths. Among 884 African American men, mean (SD) age at recruitment was 63.8 (7.6) years; mean (SD) age at recruitment among 908 European American men was 66.4 (8.1) years. In the multivariable logistic regression analysis with individual socioeconomic status adjustment, neighborhood deprivation was associated with 55% increased odds of prostate cancer among African American men (odds ratio [OR], 1.55; 95% CI, 1.33-1.81), but was not associated with the disease among European American men. Residing in the most-deprived vs least-deprived neighborhoods corresponded to 88% higher disease odds (OR, 1.88; 95% CI, 1.30-2.75) among all men and an approximate 3-fold increase among African American men (OR, 3.58; 95% CI, 1.72-7.45), but no association was noted among European American men. In Cox proportional hazard regression analyses, socioeconomic status-adjusted neighborhood deprivation was associated with an increased all-cause mortality only among African American men (hazard ratio [HR], 1.28; 95% CI, 1.08-1.53), whereas it was associated with metastatic disease and a 50% increased hazard of a prostate cancer-specific death among all men (HR, 1.50; 95% CI, 1.07-2.09). In analyses restricted to controls, neighborhood deprivation was associated with increased activity scores of serum proteome-defined chemotaxis, inflammation, and tumor immunity suppression.Conclusions and relevanceThe findings of this study suggest that deprived neighborhood residency may increase the risk of African American men for prostate cancer and a related mortality, potentially through its association with systemic immune function and inflammation.

Project description:BackgroundEmerging literature notes the importance of neighborhood-level factors for cancer control behaviors beyond that of individual factors. Markers of neighborhood-level disadvantage have been linked to greater likelihood of nonsalutary cancer control behaviors. There has been less examination of many neighborhood factors simultaneously, which more accurately reflects individuals' daily experiences. We estimated associations of neighborhood deprivation indices with cancer control behaviors, identifying the relative importance of neighborhood-level deprivation index components for these outcomes.MethodsWe used data from the Religion and Health in African Americans study, a national probability sample of African American adults. We separately considered 4 screening and 4 prevention behaviors as outcomes. We constructed neighborhood deprivation indices using census tract-level data and estimated their associations with outcomes using bayesian index models, adjusting for individual-level covariates. We reported odds ratios (ORs), credible intervals, and exceedance probabilities.ResultsParticipants in our sample engaged in relatively high levels of screening behaviors and lower levels of prevention behaviors. Neighborhood deprivation indices were statistically significantly associated with a greater likelihood of binge drinking (OR = 1.13, exceedance probability = 98.5%), smoking (OR = 1.07, exceedance probability = 99.4%), and insufficient colonoscopy (exceedance probability = 99.9%), Papanicolaou (exceedance probability = 99.7%), and prostate-specific antigen (exceedance probability = 99.1%) screening. Within neighborhood deprivation indices, median household income, percentage of individuals without some college education, and percentage of individuals unemployed received large estimated importance weights.ConclusionWe identified statistically significant associations between neighborhood disadvantage and nonsalutary cancer control behaviors as well as important neighborhood-level deprivation index components for each outcome. These and similar findings from future studies should be used to target specific neighborhood factors for specific cancer control behaviors rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach.

Dataset Information

Neighborhood effects on use of African-American Vernacular English.

Publications

Neighborhood effects on use of African-American Vernacular English.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets