Floods, Youth, and Parents

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Floods, Youth, and Parents

• The Effects of Severe Flooding on the Educational
  Development of Public School Students
• Kevin Leicht, Gerard Rushton, David Bills and
  Geoffrey Smith
• Social Science Research Center and the Institute
  for Inequality Studies, The University of Iowa
• SGER NSF Grant 0877988, August 2008-August 2009

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FLOODS, YOUTH, and PARENTS

• Outline
• Why were doing this
• Specific research aims
• Perspectives on Educational attainment and
  Natural Disasters
• Our plan of work
• Preliminary Findings
• Summing up

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Floods, Youth and Parents

• Why were doing this the widespread damage of
  the June, 2008 CR flood
• -- water 11 ft. higher than any previous record
• -- flood waters outside of the 500 yr. flood
  plain (way outside of it).
• -- Rushton/Smith were already working with the
  district on other issues (ruined).
• -- 1834 K-12 school students were living in
  affected neighborhoods.
• -- poor/minority populations were
  disproportionately affected
• -- Two elementary schools were significantly
  damaged and one (Taylor) was closed for the
  2008-09 school year.
• -- (superintendent Markward is retiring).

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Floods, Youth and Parents why were doing
this

• --Whats happening with these 1834 kids??
• -- How does the effect of displacement compare to
  other stressors that hinder youth development?

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GOAL To determine the effects of students
flood experiences on their subsequent educational
development and careers

• SPECIFIC AIMS
• Find students in 4th-8th grades who attended CRSD
  in 2007-08 who lived in residences in flooded
  areas (already done N676 why 4th-8th
  graders??)
• Link these students to 08-09 enrollment data to
  find new addresses and (in some cases) new
  schools (no small thing)

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GOAL To determine the effects of students
flood experiences on their subsequent educational
development and careers

• SPECIFIC AIMS
• (3) Assess educational development via interviews
  with students parents
• (4) Develop measures of network disruption for
  families affected by the flood

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GOAL To determine the effects of students
flood experiences on their subsequent educational
development and careers

• SPECIFIC AIMS
• (5) Compare network patterns and educational
  development of flood-affected students with a
  matched control group (race/ethnicity, gender,
  family SES, school attended now, family
  composition).
• (6) Compare network patterns and educational
  development of flood affected students who remain
  in CR and those who leave the district to attend
  school elsewhere.
• (7) To systematically compare school performance
  records for students (standardized tests grades
  and adjustment) before and after the flood event
  (through 2010 school year).

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Floods, Youth, and Parents Key Perspectives

• Key statement that summarizes our perspective
• We suggest that natural disasters like the Cedar
  Rapids flood extensively disrupt local social
  networks of residents, and that their ability to
  adjust to this disruption in ways that minimize
  the educational effects on children depends on
  the types of network ties residents had prior to
  the flood, the extent of disruption of these
  ties, and the ability of local community
  organizations and responders to fill structural
  holes that tie neighborhood residents to
  non-overlapping social networks elsewhere in the
  local community. (Leicht/Rushton/Bills/Smith,
  NSF 2008)

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Floods, Youth, and Parents Key Perspectives

• Research on educational performance and careers
• -- focuses on the social and cultural resources
  available to students through families, friends,
  neighborhoods, and schools (cf. Bills 2004).
• -- resources network connections social
  capital

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Floods, Youth, and Parents Key Perspectives

• Research on educational performance and careers
  (2)
• -- Key resources??
• parental socioeconomic resources
• cultural compatibility with middle-class
  educational norms
• neighborhood social resources (clubs, churches,
  recreation centers and childrens peer groups)

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Floods, Youth, and Parents Key Perspectives

• (2) Recent theory in the social science of
  natural disasters (cf. Brunsma et al. 2007
  Gotham 2007)
• -- manufactured risks - the more or less
  conscious placement of specific people (the poor,
  ethnic minorities, immigrants, and the socially
  marginalized) in harms way

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Floods, Youth, and Parents Key Perspectives

• (2) Recent theory in the social science of
  natural disasters (cf. Brunsma et al. 2007
  Gotham 2007)- 2
• --corrosive community (cf Erikson 1976 1994
  Fruedenburg 1997 Picou et al 2004) -- community
  social and cultural resources are destroyed as
  toxic contamination and a never-ending cycle of
  secondary disasters and chronic psychosocial
  impacts play havoc with traditional community
  ties.

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Floods, Youth, and Parents Key Perspectives

• (2) Recent theory in the social science of
  natural disasters (cf. Brunsma et al. 2007
  Gotham 2007)-3
• The severing and interference with traditional
  network ties is a central component to the
  production of corrosive communities (Cutter et
  al. 2003 Capowich and Kodkar 2007).

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Floods, Youth, and Parents Key Perspectives

• (3) network theories of structural holes (as
  detailed by Burt, 1992, 2005 see also Capowich
  and Kondkar 2007).
• -- A structural hole is a gap between two or more
  networks that requires significant effort to
  bridge.
• -- Community and social service organizations
  that bridge networks (thereby filling the
  structural hole) are in a unique, advantaged
  position to substitute for and to help restore
  severed network ties.

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Floods, Youth, and Parents Key Perspectives

• (3) network theories of structural holes (as
  detailed by Burt, 1992, 2005 see also Capowich
  and Kondkar 2007).
• A CRITICAL RESOURCE Access to social support
  from people/agencies/organizations outside the
  flood zone

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Schematic of a Structural Hole
Structural hole
Bridging a structural hole
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The Effects of Severe Flooding on the
Educational Development of Public School Students
AIMS AND GOALS

• 4 BIG HYPOTHESES
• H1 Flood victim families with extensive network
  ties within their neighborhoods and few network
  ties outside of their neighborhoods will
  experience the greatest disruption in their
  social networks as a result of the flood.

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The Effects of Severe Flooding on the
Educational Development of Public School Students
AIMS AND GOALS

• 4 BIG HYPOTHESES
• H2 Flood victim families whose local networks
  are most extensively disrupted will experience
  the greatest disruption in childrens educational
  attainment and performance as a result of the
  flood.

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The Effects of Severe Flooding on the
Educational Development of Public School Students
AIMS AND GOALS

• 4 BIG HYPOTHESES
• H3 Flood victim families with bridging contacts
  that tie them to non-overlapping networks outside
  of their neighborhoods will experience the least
  disruption in childrens educational attainment
  and performance as a result of the flood.

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The Effects of Severe Flooding on the
Educational Development of Public School Students
AIMS AND GOALS

• 4 BIG HYPOTHESES
• H4 The effect of community responses to victim
  families in the flood zone depends on
• (a) the ability of community organizations to
  fill structural holes linking local neighborhood
  residents to non-overlapping community resources
  and
• (b) the prior existence of bridging contacts
  prior to the flood.

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Floods, Youth and Parents

• Our plan of work
• Identify flood-affected students and construct a
  control group (done - control group N 400
  matched by race/ethnicity family income status
  grade in school school attended in 2008-2009)

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Floods, Youth and Parents

• Our plan of work
• Fielding a survey instrument (NOW!) -- Taken
  from
• -- NELS NLSY and LSU Post-Katrina Surveys

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Floods, Youth and Parents

• Our plan of work
• (3) Longitudinal assessment of educational
  performance
• -- measures of educational performance prior to
  the flood
• -- measures at the end of the 08-09 and 09-10
  school year
• (4) A follow-up NSF grant (August 15th ).

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Preliminary findings

• Our survey went to the field THIS WEEK
• Avg. flood victims post-flood residences? 6
• Around 100 families (of the 420 families attached
  to 676 4th-8th graders) have left the community
  entirely.
• 48 families are still doubled up living with
  another family at the same residence.
• The number of families without a permanent home
  appears to be much higher than we originally
  thought (present estimate around ½).

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Summing UP

• -- Were systematically assessing the
  longitudinal effects of a natural disaster on the
  educational performance of youth
• -- Were using and integrating prevailing social
  scientific theories on educational development
  and community responses to disaster
• -- We will supplement our sample survey with
  focus-group follow-ups with small groups of Cedar
  Rapids parents.
• -- Full results should be available by mid-June.

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Floods, Youth, and Parents

• Thank you for your attention!
• Kevin Leicht, Gerard Rushton, David Bills and
  Geoffrey Smith
• Social Science Research Center and the Institute
  for Inequality Studies, The University of Iowa
• SGER NSF Grant 0877988, August 2008-August 2009