The Intersection of Race and Class in Our Housing and Education Systems By Mikaela Kesinger University of North Carolina Wilmington Introduction I am interested in how unequal access to adequate housing and education affects youth’s exposure to—and engagement with—violence and crime. Do racial segregation and relative deprivation in housing and education impact youth’s exposure and the likelihood of engaging in crime? According to Robert Merton’s strain theory, higher levels of economic deprivation lead to higher crime rates. Areas with high levels of concentrated poverty tend to be racially segregated, and the schools in those areas are even more so. Schools have acted as a symbol of opportunity in our society, but historically we have seen those opportunities unequally distributed amongst race and gender. Unequal access to adequate schooling correlates with physical location at the neighborhood and city levels (Shedd, 2015). These daily interactions— and the different exposure that these low-income students get to the larger social world—shape their perceptions and guide students’ behavior. One of Shedd’s main themes in her 2015 book, Unequal Cities, was that there are driving forces and unintended consequences behind school policies that have linked public schooling with our criminal justice system (Shedd, 2015). With the mass amounts of public schools shutting their doors to “failure” students in these low- income communities, students of Color are pushed into schools not much better than where they started. Resources are spread even thinner to accommodate for the influx of students, and disciplinary actions are revamped and directed unequally at students of Color than White students. Schools are beginning to resemble our prison system, and this perception of injustice shapes how a child chooses to interact with their peers inside and outside of the classroom, which can subsequently lead to criminal and deviant behavior. Students of Color, primarily Black students, have external barriers that are placed in their way, which prevent social mobility. Crowder’s (2001) study on racial stratification and how that impacts the expectation of mobility for White versus people of Color looks at the many external barriers preventing people of Color from achieving social and residential mobility. According to Crowder’s study, African Americans are more likely to be forced to move involuntarily and are less likely to be homeowners (Crowder, 2001). In cities like Wilmington, North Carolina, it could be interesting to look at the areas of residential versus rental homes and how that correlates with our incident reports data. According to a study by Akins (2003), racial segregation is a strong predictor of property crime (burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft), but what is important to note is that this may be a result of the higher policing in these communities. Not only are police more likely to be present in racially segregated areas, but research shows that police are more likely to arrest people of Color and even act harsher than they would with THE INTERSECTION OF RACE AND CLASS IN OUR HOUSING AND EDUCATION SYSTEMS Undergraduate Journal of Community-Based Research and Service Learning, Vol. 13 Issue 2, Winter 2023 54 Whites (Akins, 2003). This can be problematic, especially in Wilmington, where there are plenty of areas where residential neighborhoods are positioned next to new college-student-intended apartments. We will examine the effects of these racially segregated communities being adjacent to one another compared to the incident report data the Wilmington Police Department gave us. We predict that racial segregation will directly impact the arrest reports and police incidents data, as it may result from harsher policing in these areas rather than these people’s likelihood of crime. We also predict that the kind of schooling that these children receive due to the location where they were raised affects whether or not a child will be involved in—or exposed to— criminal behavior. The intersection of race and class embeds itself in our education system and housing, which can affect all aspects of a person’s life. As we see in the results of Akins’ 2003 study on racial segregation and property crime, people of color are left behind without equal access and opportunity to housing and education as the rest of society propels forwards onto bigger and better things. As research shows, this can lead to crime and deviance in certain communities—the most prevalent type being property crime (Akins, 2003). Does Inequality Lead to Crime? It is important to understand how our modern education and housing institutions perpetuate racism to fully grasp people's perceptions of adolescents of Color (and even their perceptions of themselves) and how that translates into deviance. From what we understand about Robert Merton’s (1948) concept of self-fulfilling prophecies, we know that lower expectations for people of Color can lead to low social mobility, less rigorous schooling, and even harsher punishments for students of Color. Steele (1997) extended upon Merton’s definition to add the idea of stereotype threat, which is the concern that one may fall into a negative stereotype of one’s group that inversely lead to fulfilling that negative stereotype. For example, the idea that Black students are less motivated and successful has historically led to less college admission for Black students (Schaedig, 2020). Shedd’s (2015) book Unequal Cities looks at relative deprivation and how unequal access to education is “cheating” or “leaving behind” these low-income students. Students are exposed to different environments, policies, and expectations that alter their beliefs about what they are capable of versus what is expected of them. Relative deprivation highlights how one group of students may experience their schooling versus another and how economic deprivation can heighten one’s sense of normlessness, leading to higher levels of deviance. For the kids who feel left behind, deviance is just a slippery slope to criminal behavior, especially when they turn to other sources to learn about life, such as other like-minded individuals around the neighborhood who denounce formal education. In a study about integrating the sociology of place and environmental criminology, Kim and colleagues (2013) look at how meaning is assigned to a place, which encompasses anywhere someone has assigned meaning to because of shared values and camaraderie. Behavior often becomes “more expressive” in a place filled with meaning and “insiders,” and subsequently, these places tend to be policed more harshly (Kim et al., 2013). We predict that these places in Wilmington will be closer to downtown and on the “Southside,” where they lack new infrastructure such as schools and adequate living quarters. Bernburg and his colleagues in Iceland examined multilevel data on 5,491 Icelandic adolescents in 83 different schools to understand how economic deprivation leads to higher levels of anger, normlessness, and delinquency among students (Bernburg et al., 2009). What is important to note is that not only did Bernburg (2009) and his colleagues find support for the THE INTERSECTION OF RACE AND CLASS IN OUR HOUSING AND EDUCATION SYSTEMS Undergraduate Journal of Community-Based Research and Service Learning, Vol. 13 Issue 2, Winter 2023 55 relationships between objective relative deprivation and crime, but there was even greater support for the relationship between subjective relative deprivation and delinquency. This means that not only are kids aware of their position in opposition to their advantaged peers, but children perceive this difference as more influential than it may be, proving once again that perception is important in studying crime. Not only do they look at attitudes within the school, but they also examine the standard of living in the school community. Bernburg notes that this is alarming because subjective relative deprivation can feel inescapable and cause anger and hopelessness that lead to violent criminal behavior as these children try to “take control” over their lives and change their reality (Bernburg, 2009). According to Kozol’s (2005) book, The Shame of the Nation, racial segregation in our schools has unintended consequences on youth’s perceptions which can lead to deviant or criminal behavior (Anon, 2006). Kozol introduces the book with an overview of the Harper High School students from Oprah’s show who visited Neuqua Valley High School. These students realized in an extremely jarring way that they were not receiving the same kind of education as the predominantly-White-enrolled school only 30 minutes away (Shedd, 2015). We predict that the racially segregated schools in Wilmington, North Carolina, will directly impact the incident reports data, and that children who live in these areas of relative deprivation will have more exposure to crime than those who live in more affluent areas neighborhoods and go to more advanced schools. This paper will investigate the intersection of race and class and how that affects an individual’s ability to access adequate housing and education. We wish to understand how different access and exposure in schooling, and through racial segregation in our housing, contribute to our youth’s perceptions of themselves relative to others. Does subjective relative deprivation in youth communities lead to more exposure to crime in Wilmington, North Carolina? Review of Past Literature The social determinants of housing and education are important in studying youth exposure and engagement with crime because of the differences in access and exposure and the varying perceptions that our youth has of themselves and others in society. Perception of Self and Others Let us look at Bernburg’s (2003) and Shedd’s (2015) accounts of relative deprivation. We see that different access levels can lead to certain perceptions about the world and the institutions that govern our modern society. Not only does a student’s perception of themselves and others shape their interactions with others, but their perception of how “just” or “fair” the education or health systems are can directly influence their motivation in school and stunt their desire for upward mobility through higher education. Peers at school can be an important reference for normal standards of education and living (Bernburg, 2009). In low-income communities where economic deprivation is common, the predicted effects of economic deprivation on both delinquency and violent behavior appear to be null. In contrast, the effects are evident in communities where economic deprivation is rare (.21 and .30 for delinquency and violence, respectively). Seeing how other students live and are treated in school can affect their perception of their status, especially if it is very obviously different (i.e., a student of Color watches their White peers gain access to AP courses easily). It is in the more economically advantaged schools and neighborhoods where low-income students of Color face the greatest risk for violence and delinquency, as they are held against the standards of their White, middle- THE INTERSECTION OF RACE AND CLASS IN OUR HOUSING AND EDUCATION SYSTEMS Undergraduate Journal of Community-Based Research and Service Learning, Vol. 13 Issue 2, Winter 2023 56 to-upper-class peers. These schools perpetuate feelings of normlessness and anger in students of Color. However, it creates an environment where these students are more closely watched as their behavior is putatively compared to the more “affluent” students. A student who has to walk through a metal detector, be patted down in front of their peers, and have their belongings searched just to enter a public school is going to have a much lower desire to be an upstanding citizen than the kids who can roam freely through the halls with their belongings without fear of being searched (Shedd, 2015). A group of youth researchers in NYC (YRNES) conducted a participatory action research project where they used quantitative surveys, qualitative focus groups, and a mapping technique that they called “the problem tree” to understand better the symptoms or root causes of the “education problem.” They found that mayoral control and over-policing in low-income schools are the two main issues plaguing New York City’s public school system (Tuck et al., 2008). Many schools in cities like Chicago or New York City have metal detectors as soon as students walk through the door. The YRNES outlined the most heartbreaking discussions and responses they received from their fellow students: like the student who was almost arrested ten minutes after walking into the school because he forgot to bring his ID with him through the metal detector, or the elementary school students who drew pictures of cops yelling at their peers to “take your hat off.” They wanted to show the negative effects of too much control in schools and police departments’ involvement in certain districts. Policing in NYC schools appeared to negatively impact low-income youth the most (60%), with young men following that (50%), and of course, youth of Color (48%). These youth want the opportunity to have a say in how their schools treat them, whether through punitive measures or simply through equal resources (Tuck et al., 2008). Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s term cultural racism refers to the contemporary racism that plagues our modern school system—it disguises itself in cultural statements that offer prescriptions for how groups behave (i.e., Black students are less motivated) (White, 2015). What we see historically is that our schools are built for the White middle class to survive, yet students of Color are blamed for falling behind and are given up on. Without places to turn to for legitimate means of social mobility, disadvantaged youth tend to turn towards more illegitimate means of gaining the kind of social capital they are denied in schools (Hursh, 2007). Those who live in more disadvantaged neighborhoods with high exposure to means of illegitimate success are likely to fall into that lifestyle rather than fight for an education system that continues to fail them. Ladson-Billings uses the national debt as a metaphor for understanding the educational debt we owe students of Color. Residential segregation, wealth, and income inequality are problems outside of the school that must be worked on to positively impact our education system (Ladson-Billings, 2006). Access to Housing and Education and Subsequent Exposure to Violence: Access to housing and education is important in the study of exposure to crime because what youth are exposed to at home and in school affects their behavior, especially in the case of negative life events (NLEs) such as safety and health-related problems—like a parent passing away or becoming chronically ill. DiPierro (2015) studied 144 Latino students attending a charter school in the Midwest. They completed surveys that looked at self-reported delinquency, accounts of NLEs, and academic aspirations as a buffer between NLEs and delinquency. They found that NLEs are strongly linked to delinquency because of the multiple stressors associated with safety-related NLEs, which increase the risk of developing maladaptive behaviors. However, academic aspirations are a moderating factor between NLEs and delinquent behavior. THE INTERSECTION OF RACE AND CLASS IN OUR HOUSING AND EDUCATION SYSTEMS Undergraduate Journal of Community-Based Research and Service Learning, Vol. 13 Issue 2, Winter 2023 57 Academic aspirations did not moderate the relationships between financial-related, family structure-related, and social-related NLEs and delinquency because these types of life events are less destabilizing than health or safety NLEs (where academic aspirations provide a sense of control). In low-income schools with unengaging classrooms, chronically absent teachers, and fewer extracurricular opportunities for students, there is not room for academic aspirations (DiPierro et al., 2015). Students experiencing negative life events are not that different from their peers at these schools, and insufficient schooling is not a good moderator between negative life experiences and delinquency. Together these reports show us that insufficient schooling for low-income students of Color limits their chances for upward mobility. By examining 4,407 Black householders and 6,929 White householders, Crowder (2001) found that the racial difference in the relationship between expectations and mobility persisted, even when controls for human capital characteristics were introduced. This supports the general stratification perspective, pointing to external structural barriers to Black mobility. Racial differences can also be seen in the interactions between expectations and socioeconomic resources in determining residential mobility (Crowder, 2001). This is also true in our education system; as we have seen historically, White students are expected to succeed, and students of Color are expected to be the “problem students.” In terms of exposure to crime and the police, those who live in economically deprived neighborhoods are more likely to be exposed to violence or unusual behavior (Akins, 2003). Racial segregation still exists in unique forms—including in our education system through segregated schools, economic segregation, and residential segregation—due to the wealth gap between races and ethnicities in the US and other local land use policies. Akins (2003) found that segregation is positively associated with all three measures of serious property crime in a quantitative study of 340 American cities. Economic deprivation is the strongest predictor of burglary, whereas segregation is the strongest predictor of larceny and vehicle theft. The association between segregation and crime appears to be the result of police suspicion targeting these neighborhoods. Because segregation concentrates minorities into certain areas, it may encourage the police to focus their efforts and resources on these communities (Akins, 2003). What disguises itself as community-oriented policing is a form of racism that contributes to the concentrated poverty in certain areas, as these areas of heavy police concentration are less desirable to families. Conclusion of Literature Review Since we know that academic aspirations could act as a moderator when it comes to the intersection of negative life events (NLEs) and the likelihood that someone will participate in criminal or deviant behavior, it is important to understand what schooling opportunities these low-income students are provided (DiPierro, 2015). Are the schools here in Wilmington racially segregated? What kind of growth opportunities are there for our youth here? Most of the studies we included are outside of North Carolina, so we will need to gather our own data about the school’s demographics and the opportunities available to school districts with different poverty rates from websites like ProPublica and the GSS. Community-level intervention is required to ensure that adolescents are provided the best means for success at equal rates across races and ethnicity. Foster and colleagues (2004) found results from Cox proportional hazard models that suggest better mental health services reduce the risks of initial—and subsequent—juvenile justice involvement by 31% and 28%, respectively. Though our literature provides an understanding of how race and class interact to provide THE INTERSECTION OF RACE AND CLASS IN OUR HOUSING AND EDUCATION SYSTEMS Undergraduate Journal of Community-Based Research and Service Learning, Vol. 13 Issue 2, Winter 2023 58 students with a roadmap for interacting with their peers at school or in their neighborhoods, it does not give us enough understanding of preventative measures. On top of understanding the educational opportunities available to students of Color, it’s important to understand how housing plays a key role in determining what kind of education a child will receive. Our methods section will look closely at how residential and rental housing affects youth’s exposure to crime and where racially segregated neighborhoods can be found along our census tracts. Research Methodology: For my first research question, I want to know if areas with a higher concentration of rental homes are more likely to be exposed to crime than areas with mostly residential homes. For this, I can use the type of housing (residential or rental) as the independent variable—pulled from an existing layer on ArcGIS titled “USA Tracts” with the specific attribute “RENTER_OCC” described in greater detail in the next section—which will allow me to see the concentration of renters in each tract to see which areas have the highest concentration of renters and if that is correlated with our incidents data on the map (Anon, n.d.). The dependent variable would be the Wilmington Police Department’s youth incidents aggregate data at the tract level because we want to see if there are certain areas that have higher rates of incidents. The tract- level data shows us a summary of what is happening in each of the 42 tracts. For my second research question, I want to know if areas with a high concentration of individuals without a high school diploma are also categorized as having more recorded incidents with the police. Using 2016 ACS data on ArcGIS, I can look at “Education Level by Tract” to understand the relationship between not having a high school diploma and police incidents rates in certain tracts by layering the aggregate incidents data with the ACS data on residents that have an education level of “9-12th grade (no diploma)” (Anon, n.d.). The dependent variable remains the same here, as I want to see the youth’s incidents at the tract (or aggregate) level to fully understand why certain tracks are overexposed to crime compared to others. I am interested in understanding the intersection of race and class regarding access to adequate housing and education and how the above factors influence Wilmington’s youth’s likelihood of engaging with or being exposed to crime. This is community-based participatory research, and our community partner is the Wilmington, North Carolina, Police Department. This is strictly a quantitative analysis of existing statistical and archival data given to us by our community partner. This project began in 2019 when the Wilmington Police Department (WPD) asked the sociology department at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington (UNCW) to help them sort through their arrest data. The chief of police wanted to understand better his hypothesis that District 3 has an unreasonably high arrest and incidents rate compared to the other districts. We look at both the incident data as well as the arrest data from 2000 to 2019 to show that it is not just a matter of people of Color being arrested at a starkly different rate; they also appear to be reporting incidents or witnessing incidents and reporting them to the police at a higher rate than other districts. There are around 729,359 incidents at the incident level, and 42 groups of data are recorded at the aggregate tract level. I will not be looking at the arrest data, as I am primarily focused on showing that youth of Color—and poor youth encountering housing instability—are disproportionately being exposed to crime based on their location and access to education. Social Determinants of Exposure to Crime I will use the WPD aggregate incidents reports data to look at the percentage of youth THE INTERSECTION OF RACE AND CLASS IN OUR HOUSING AND EDUCATION SYSTEMS Undergraduate Journal of Community-Based Research and Service Learning, Vol. 13 Issue 2, Winter 2023 59 exposed to crime between 2000 and 2019 in each tract. An “incident” is classified as being any time youth comes in contact with the police, whether through an arrest, a witness to a crime, or a suspect in a crime. Unequal Access to Adequate Housing Another important variable is the type of housing a person is in (residential v. rental). Through the ArcGIS program, I used the 2020 Esri Demographics team and 2010 US Census data to narrow down the “RENTERS_OCC” or “renters occupied,” which measured the frequency of rental homes rather than residential in Wilmington. There was an option on the existing layer, “USA Tracts,” that I added to the ArcGIS map to change the markers based on the specific attribute I was interested in (renters by tract). We organized the WPD arrest data by types of crime (7 total re-coded types), such as violent crime, property crime, and more. I will measure the WPD aggregate incidents data by tract to see which areas have the most property crime occurrences and which have the most violent crime incidents. Those working with the arrest data have discovered that youth in Wilmington are disproportionately engaging in property crime, so I want to map these types of crimes to see which tracts are disproportionately exposed to higher property crime and violent crime. I suspect this data will show us the relationship between youth exposure to crime and high levels of individuals without a high school diploma in an area or those who are also suffering from housing instability. Unequal Access to Quality Education: I am interested in looking at education level, or more specifically, which areas have the highest concentration of individuals without a high school diploma (those who answered “less than high school graduate” in the American Community Survey). I found an existing layer that measures education level by tract through the ArcGIS program. It looks at USA Census Tract centroid points with data from the American Community Survey in 2015. It is a 5-year estimate of the predominant education level attained by 25+ year-olds in our population from 2012-2016. I narrowed it down further to only include the percentage of people who did not obtain a degree to see where the highest concentration of those without a high school diploma is in Wilmington, NC. The median household income of families in Wilmington is another important independent variable that may contribute to how likely a person is to be exposed to crime in their neighborhood. Those with lower incomes are already predicted to live in apartments, townhouses, or other complexes where they can rent their living space due to the past research on residential instability leading to modern-day racial segregation by neighborhood. Are the youth in these lower-income neighborhoods more likely to be exposed to crime than those in higher-income neighborhoods? I used an existing layer by Esri on ArcGIS to track household income by tract on our map. The five-year estimate from 2016-2020 shows median household income by race and by the age of householder shown by tract, county, and state boundaries. I was able to measure the relationship between income and exposure to crime by mapping them. Limitations While it does not particularly make the data unusable—since both of the existing data figures I pulled from ArcGIS are 5-year estimates and can still be generalized across time—it THE INTERSECTION OF RACE AND CLASS IN OUR HOUSING AND EDUCATION SYSTEMS Undergraduate Journal of Community-Based Research and Service Learning, Vol. 13 Issue 2, Winter 2023 60 should be noted that the data used on some of my social determinants does not line up perfectly in time. Our WPD data is from 2000-2019, while my measurement of individuals in each tract who have not received a high school diploma only spans from 2012-2016 (Anon, n.d.), and my measurement of median household income spans from 2016-2020 (Anon, n.d.). Sampling with Existing Data A sample is a subset of a population, so we actually don’t have a sample at all; we have a population. Our data looks at the entire population of youth in Wilmington, NC, so we do not have to make any assumptions about our findings regarding youth here—all our findings accurately represent our population. That is why we will look at WPD incidents data (total sample size is 729,359) as well as the aggregate data by tract (total sample size of 42, i.e., the number of tracts in Wilmington) so that we can calculate frequencies on SPSS as well as map our findings through ArcGIS. My map also includes the district borders so that we could investigate the police chief’s hypothesis on what is so different about District 3 that is causing a high concentration of arrests and incidents with the police. Limitations to Sampling: However, this is just a Wilmington population, so we cannot make many generalizations about our findings to apply to youth outside Wilmington, NC. So we do not have a sampling design either. While this benefits our ability to accurately show the Wilmington Police Department what is happening in the districts they are concerned about, this research design hinders us from making assumptions about the larger society outside of our review of previous literature. We also cannot see the relevant data involving the nature of the incident, the intent behind the police officer called to the scene, or really anything that the police don’t know themselves in order to include in the data. Our data does not show us what happens behind the scenes, like if their parents dropped out of school too early and cannot afford to keep their kids busy outside of school or if the real reason these kids are continuously exposed to the police is that their neighborhood is racially segregated and suffers from over-policing (Tuck et al., 2008). Data Analysis To uncover some of the social determinants that may be causing this difference in exposure between Black and White youth, I had to look outside the WPD data and peel back some of the layers the incidents reports couldn’t cover. I used bivariate testing through SPSS to look at the relationship between age and race and how it affects the amount of incidents that are reported by the police. I used the ARCgis program to look at the amount of people per tract that had dropped out of high school before receiving their diploma to show the difference in access to education and how that differs based on where you are raised and what kind of resources you’re exposed to. I was also interested in the intersection of housing—and average income by household—to show how housing instability plays a major role in youth’s lives and how these things impact the kind of behavior they’re exposed to. Results As we can see from Figures 1.1 and 1.2, an incident with the police here in Wilmington is more likely to occur for Black males. Looking at Figure 1.2, we can see that there are over 21,987 incidents with the police that involve Black youth, while that number is nearly cut in half, with the amount of white youth exposed to crime only being 15,104. Figure 1.1 shows us that, no THE INTERSECTION OF RACE AND CLASS IN OUR HOUSING AND EDUCATION SYSTEMS Undergraduate Journal of Community-Based Research and Service Learning, Vol. 13 Issue 2, Winter 2023 61 matter what age group, Black youth are more likely to be reported in police incidents than white youth in Wilmington, NC. Wilmington is a college town and is therefore categorized as having a high level of temporary housing—or apartments and townhouses to rent—which can lead to heightened housing instability (Anon. 2016). We know that housing instability is just one of many neighborhood characteristics associated with higher levels of crime—as people juggle rent increases and other personal matters like income or social capital—so we were interested in discovering if our data also categorized areas that have more apartment buildings or townhouses as areas with high rates of exposure to crime (Anon. 2016). In the mapping portion of the result, we can see more clearly the effects of concentrated disadvantages—such as the number of renters occupied or the number of individuals who did not complete high school, concentrated in one area—and how that has affected youth’s exposure to crime in Wilmington. By layering the concentration of renters in an area with the existing incident data at the tract level, we can see the relationship between residential instability and exposure to crime (Figure 1.4). Figure 1.1: Bivariate table of age, race, and type of incident (victim/witness or offender): Figure 1.1: As the table shows, Black youth are more likely to come in contact with the police, and they are more likely to be offenders/suspects as they get older. White youth tend to be seen more as a victim or witness by the police involved, until you get to age 15-17, but even then the difference isn’t as drastic as Black youth incidents. Teenagers are more likely to be offenders/suspects, especially if they’re Black. THE INTERSECTION OF RACE AND CLASS IN OUR HOUSING AND EDUCATION SYSTEMS Undergraduate Journal of Community-Based Research and Service Learning, Vol. 13 Issue 2, Winter 2023 62 Figure 1.2: Frequency of Police Incidents per Tract by Race Figure 1.2: Based on the information we are given by the WPD, we can see that non-white youth make up over 60% of the recorded incidents from 2000-2019. I also made a graph through SPSS showing the percentage of youth exposed to crime in Wilmington to see which age children are more likely to be involved in a police incident (Figure 1.3). We can see that teenagers are more likely to be involved in incidents with the police, but what is alarming about this data is that it is not uncommon for kids as young as one or two years old also to be recorded in the incident data. By mapping this data on ArcGIS, the map showed which tract has high percentages of youth exposed to crime and which areas have low percentages of youth exposed to crime. I added the WPD districts layer to the map, and from there, I could see if District 3 was indeed categorized by high violent crime incidents. I then used supplemental data on other social determinants (like the type of housing, average household income, and quality of education) to examine the greater sociological story of what is happening behind the scenes (Figure 1.4). Figure 1.3: Age Distribution Bar Chart of Youth Police Incidents THE INTERSECTION OF RACE AND CLASS IN OUR HOUSING AND EDUCATION SYSTEMS Undergraduate Journal of Community-Based Research and Service Learning, Vol. 13 Issue 2, Winter 2023 63 Figure 1.3: Based on this data we can see that teenagers (ages 13-17) make up over 75% of the incidents data from WPD, but even more interesting is how many individual cases there are for children under the age of 6. Mapping our Incidents Data: Using ArcGIS, we were able to map out the social determinants of exposure to crime relating to housing, income, and education to see the relationship to police contact more clearly (see Figure 1.3). By combining our WPD aggregate incidents data with the social determinants data I programmed into ArcGIS, we can see that district 3 is categorized as having high levels of violent crime exposure—which are displayed as red circles that vary in opacity. District 3 also has a higher level of people without a high school diploma, which we can see displayed as flags that vary in size as the rates increase. This area also has higher levels of renters than most of the other districts, which we can see displayed as blue apartment buildings that vary in size as there is a higher concentration in the area (Figure 1.3). So as we can see, the places with a high concentration of renters and people without a high school degree appear to have the most exposure to violent crime. Then, closer to campus, we see more property crime, which is displayed by the pink-to-purple gradient that shades each tract. Strain theory argues that higher levels of economic deprivation lead to higher crime rates, and residential segregation by race is one of the strongest predictors of economic deprivation (Akins, 2003). It can also have the adverse effect of over-policing due to the perception that the police have of certain disadvantaged areas. Most areas with the highest concentration of property crime also fall on the lower end of the median household income scale (aside from the one with Masonboro in it), or they at least have a high concentration of renters that could lead to over- policing in that area. THE INTERSECTION OF RACE AND CLASS IN OUR HOUSING AND EDUCATION SYSTEMS Undergraduate Journal of Community-Based Research and Service Learning, Vol. 13 Issue 2, Winter 2023 64 Figure 1.4: Map of the social determinants of exposure to crime: income, housing, and education. Figure 1.4: The red circles are representative of the aggregate number of violent crime the youth have been exposed to in terms of police incidents. The shaded purple is representative of the aggregate number of property crime youth in Wilmington are exposed to per tract. The flags vary in size based on how many high school dropouts there are in a particular tract, and the apartment buildings vary in size based on how many renters there are in a certain area. The money symbol grows larger as the median household income increases. Discussion Our data shows a higher chance of being exposed to crime in Wilmington for Black individuals. Particularly, teenagers are more likely to be recorded for incidents with the police, but we see incident data reports on youth as young as one year(s) old. To uncover some of the social determinants that may be causing this difference in exposure to crime between Black and White youth, I had to look outside the WPD data. I used the ArcGIS program to look at the number of people per tract that did not receive a high school diploma to show the difference in access to education and how that differs based on where they are raised and what kind of resources they are exposed to. I was also interested in the impacts of housing instability—and average income by household—to show how housing instability plays a major role in people’s lives and these things impact the kind of behavior they’re exposed to. I used the number of renters in a certain area by tract to see if areas with high levels of temporary residents have higher incidents with the police. By combining our WPD aggregate incidents data with all of the THE INTERSECTION OF RACE AND CLASS IN OUR HOUSING AND EDUCATION SYSTEMS Undergraduate Journal of Community-Based Research and Service Learning, Vol. 13 Issue 2, Winter 2023 65 data I programmed into ArcGIS, we can see that district 3 is categorized as having high levels of violent crime exposure as well as higher levels of high school dropouts and even has higher levels of renters than most of the other districts (Figure 1.4). Limitations: Unfortunately, we cannot make any assumptions about society as a whole using our data without a proper sampling design and by only using the total population here in Wilmington, NC. It represents Wilmington’s youth and their interactions with the police, but we do not use any data from outside the city aside from the literature we examined. On top of that, as we can see in Figure 1.4, there are a few tracts on which we do not have data. The areas that are not shaded in by purple to represent property crime or which do not have any red circles to show violent crime exposure are missing from our data and, therefore, cannot be accurately discussed. Another slight limitation is the years each of my datasets was collected, but since most of the variables are 5-to-10-year estimates (such as average income by household), the assumptions that can be made about the median are reliable estimates that can accurately depict the story going on in these areas regardless of being collected in the early-to-mid 2000s. One main issue with these estimates would be that they cannot accurately depict the recent spike in building apartment buildings and other temporary housing here in Wilmington as the University of North Carolina in Wilmington grows in popularity. THE INTERSECTION OF RACE AND CLASS IN OUR HOUSING AND EDUCATION SYSTEMS Undergraduate Journal of Community-Based Research and Service Learning, Vol. 13 Issue 2, Winter 2023 66 Works Cited Akins, S. (2003). Racial segregation and property crime: Examining the mediating effect of police strength. 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Social Forces, 79(4), 1377-1396. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sof.2001.0035 DiPierro, M., Fite, P. J., Cooley, J. L., & Poquiz, J. L. (2015). Academic aspirations as a moderator of the link between negative life events and delinquency in a sample of Latino youth. Child & Youth Care Forum, 45(4), 505–523. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-015-9341-y Foster, E. M., Qaseem, A., & Connor, T. (2004). Can better mental health services reduce the risk of juvenile justice system involvement?. American journal of public health, 94(5), 859–865. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418820300095661 https://www.oprah.com/world/failing-grade/all https://www.huduser.gov/portal/periodicals/em/summer16/highlight2.html https://uncw.maps.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=45ede6d6ff7e4cbbbffa60d34227e462 http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sof.2001.0035 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-015-9341-y THE INTERSECTION OF RACE AND CLASS IN OUR HOUSING AND EDUCATION SYSTEMS Undergraduate Journal of Community-Based Research and Service Learning, Vol. 13 Issue 2, Winter 2023 67 https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.94.5.859 Kim, S., LaGrange, R. L., & Willis, C. L. (2012). Place and crime. Urban Affairs Review, 49(1), 141–155. https://doi.org/10.1177/1078087412465401 Ladson-Billings, Gloria. 2006. “From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools.” Educational Researcher 35(7):3–12.. Schaedig, Derek. 2020. “Self-Fulfilling Prophecy and the Pygmalion Effect.” Self-Fulfilling Prophecy and The Pygmalion Effect | Simply Psychology. Retrieved March 9, 2022 (https://www.simplypsychology.org/self-fulfilling-prophecy.html). Shedd, Carla Lynette-Marie. 2015. Unequal City: Race, Schools, and Perceptions of Injustice. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Tuck, Eve et al. 2008.rep. Brooklyn , New York : Independent Commission on Public Education (iCOPE). White, T. (2015). Charter schools: Demystifying whiteness in a market of “no excuses” corporate-styled charter schools. In Picower, B. & Mayorga, E. (Eds.) What’s Race Got to Do with It: How Current School Reform Policy Maintains Racial and Economic Inequality. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.94.5.859 https://doi.org/10.1177/1078087412465401 http://www.simplypsychology.org/self-fulfilling-prophecy.html) http://www.simplypsychology.org/self-fulfilling-prophecy.html) THE INTERSECTION OF RACE AND CLASS IN OUR HOUSING AND EDUCATION SYSTEMS Undergraduate Journal of Community-Based Research and Service Learning, Vol. 13 Issue 2, Winter 2023 68 The social determinants of housing and education are important in studying youth exposure and engagement with crime because of the differences in access and exposure and the varying perceptions that our youth has of themselves and others in society. Research Methodology: Social Determinants of Exposure to Crime I will use the WPD aggregate incidents reports data to look at the percentage of youth exposed to crime between 2000 and 2019 in each tract. An “incident” is classified as being any time youth comes in contact with the police, whether through an arres... Sampling with Existing Data Our data shows a higher chance of being exposed to crime in Wilmington for Black individuals. Particularly, teenagers are more likely to be recorded for incidents with the police, but we see incident data reports on youth as young as one year(s) old. ... Limitations: