ABSTRACT
This chapter explores developmental outcomes, or child-level variables, process variables, or family-level variables and neighborhood resource variables, or community-level variables. It provides a definition of equivalence is offered, followed by a discussion of when it is appropriate to use outcome measures developed with white middle-class samples for other groups defined by race, ethnicity, or class. The chapter focuses on the use of family race, ethnicity, or class as explanatory variables in analyses. It argues that neighborhoods influence familial processes and child outcomes via the lenses of race, ethnicity, and class as well. Issues are most likely to be raised about the borrowing of measures that originated in studies of primarily white middle- to high-income families when the subject of inquiry is low-income nonwhite families. The chapter discusses that conceptually anchored research also must consider discrimination and segregation, both of which influence children of color more than white children, even when equating groups on social class.
