Navigating Dangerous Streets: The Sources and Consequences of Street Efficacy Patrick T. Sharkey Harvard University The concept of street efficacy, defined as the perceived ability to avoid violent confrontations and to be safe in one’s neighborhood, is proposed as a mechanism connecting aspects of adolescents’“imposed” environments to the choices they make in creating their own “selected” environments that minimize the potential for violent confrontations. Empirical models using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods suggest that street efficacy is substantially influenced by various aspects of the social context surrounding adolescents. Adolescents who live in neighborhoods with concentrated disadvantage and low collective efficacy, respectively, are found to have less confidence in their ability to avoid violence after controlling for an extensive set of individual- and family-level factors. Exposure to violence also reduces street efficacy, although it does not explain the association between collective efficacy and individual street efficacy. Adolescents’ confidence in their ability to avoid violence is shown to be an important predictor of the types of environments they select for themselves. In particular, adolescents with high levels of street efficacy are less likely to resort to violence themselves or to associate with delinquent peers. esearchers across the social sciences face Katz 1988). A key task for researchers studying Ran inherent difficulty in attempting to incor- adolescent development is to account for indi- porate the neighborhood context into individual- vidual agency and the variation in individual level models of adolescent behavior. Although behavior that occurs within social areas such as convincing arguments have been made about neighborhoods or schools, while also acknowl- why the places where adolescents live matter for edging the role that social contexts play in shap- their developmental trajectories (Brooks-Gunn ing developmental trajectories. et al. 1993; Gephart 1997; Wilson 1987), much To do so, it is necessary to make a concep- sociological research ignores the agency of indi- tual distinction between adolescents’“imposed” viduals as they navigate their social worlds and “selected” environments (Bandura (Bandura 1997; Bandura 2001; Coleman 1988; 1997:163), and to identify the relationship Direct all correspondence to Patrick T. Sharkey, Harvard Proseminar on Inequality and Social Policy, Harvard University, William James Hall, 33 Kirkland ASR editor Jerry Jacobs, and anonymous ASR review- Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (sharkey@fas. ers for helpful comments on an earlier draft of the harvard.edu). The John D. and Catherine MacArthur article. A different version of this article was pre- Foundation, the National Institute of Justice, and the sented at the annual meeting of the American National Institute of Mental Health provided fund- Sociological Association in August 2005, and the ing support for the collection of the data used in this author thanks all the participants and audience mem- research. The author thanks Robert Sampson, William bers in the session for their comments. Finally, the J. Wilson, and Christopher Winship for their thoughts author is particularly indebted to Robert Sampson and and comments throughout the development of the Steve Raudenbush for an extensive discussion on article. The author also thanks Thomas Cook, Jim the concept of street efficacy that took place early in Quane, Steve Raudenbush, participants in the the development of the manuscript. AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW, 2006, VOL. 71 (October:826–846) NAVIGATING DANGEROUS STREETS—–827 between the two. Adolescents are subject to expend in selecting environments and peer certain aspects of their physical and social envi- groups that minimize the potential for violent ronments over which they have little control, and confrontations. In this sense, social cognition is which may limit the range of choices or oppor- conceptualized as a primary mechanism con- tunities available to them. It is this imposed necting the imposed environment and the select- environment on which researchers studying ed environment, as depicted in Figure 1. “neighborhood effects” focus in their analysis To test the relationship between the imposed of adolescent development. However, within neighborhood context, street efficacy, and the the imposed environment, adolescents are able selected environment, several series of empiri- to exercise choice, whether that choice is con- cal models are estimated using data from the strained or not, and to select certain features of Project on Human Development in Chicago the environment that enable them to pursue Neighborhoods (Earls et al. 1994; Earls et al. their own unique set of goals and ambitions. In 1995). The first series examines the sources of this sense, individual agency plays a large role street efficacy and shows that adolescents’con- in determining how adolescents respond to their fidence in their ability to avoid violence is sub- social setting and the types of environments stantially influenced by aspects of the they select for themselves. neighborhood context, especially the level of An essential question is how aspects of the collective efficacy in the neighborhood. In a imposed environment affect the choices ado- second set of models, I find preliminary evi- lescents make as they select and create for them- dence to suggest that adolescents with high selves an actual, lived environment that will street efficacy take steps to select environments help shape their developmental trajectory. To that minimize the potential for violent con- answer this question, I draw on a social cogni- frontations. I find that adolescents with high tive theory of behavioral adaptation—self-effi- street efficacy are less likely to behave vio- cacy theory—to help explain choices relating to lently themselves or associate with delinquent violence that adolescents make as they grow up peers. However, adolescents confident in their in neighborhoods with varying levels of disad- ability to avoid violence are no less likely to take vantage and social organization (Bandura 1977; part in several types of unstructured activities Bandura 1997). In applying self-efficacy theo- associated with delinquency. Considered as a ry to the study of individual violence, I argue whole, the results provide support for a revised that efficacy should be considered a contextu- perspective on violence, one that emphasizes al concept, in that aspects of the imposed neigh- individual agency and the capacity of both indi- borhood context are likely to combine with viduals and collectivities to play an active role processes occurring in families and with char- in reducing the potential for violence in their acteristics of children to shape adolescents’ lives and communities. expectations about their ability to perform the actions necessary to achieve certain outcomes. THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS In particular, the concept of street efficacy, NEIGHBORHOODS AND INDIVIDUAL AGENCY defined as the perceived ability to avoid violent confrontations and find ways to be safe in one’s Neighborhoods vary with respect to the types neighborhood, is proposed as a tool for incor- of role models and peers they provide, the rel- porating the neighborhood context into the ative stock of various resources and support analysis of individual violent behavior. available to young people (e.g. the quality of I hypothesize that adolescents’ confidence schools, policing, health care systems, and pro- in their ability to find ways to avoid violence is grams for youth, as well as the informal over- likely to affect the creativity and effort they sight of public spaces by local residents), and Figure 1. The Relationship between Adolescents’ Imposed and Selected Environments 828—–AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW the presence of poverty, drugs, weapons, crime, the resources upon which he draws. It is, in and violence (Anderson 1999; Jargowsky 1994; essence, the lived environment of the child. Wilson 1987). It is widely assumed that this Critics of the neighborhood effects literature variation affects the way children think about are correct in implying that the selected envi- their future, the types of people they look up to ronment is, in many ways, more relevant to as role models, the types of friends with whom adolescent development than the imposed envi- they associate, and the opportunities available ronment, yet one would be hard-pressed to make to them (Anderson 1999; Case and Katz 1991; the argument that the two are unrelated. To rec- Ellen and Turner 1997; Elliott et al. 1996; oncile these perspectives, a theoretical model is Sampson and Wilson 1995; Wilson 1987). needed to explain the way that adolescents trans- However, theories analyzing the ways that form the imposed environment into their own neighborhoods affect children have been criti- unique, selected environment. I propose a con- cized because they ignore the fact that children textualized version of self-efficacy theory as make choices about the people with whom they an appropriate model for this task. associate, the types of activities in which they engage, and the role models they choose for EFFICACY ON THE STREET themselves. This critique is best expressed in a Self-efficacy theory is based on the premise passage from Susan Mayer and Christopher that changes in behavior “achieved by different Jencks’review of the “neighborhood effects” lit- methods derive from a common