Women's Danger Management Strategies in an Inner‐City Housing Project*

• Author: Stephanie M. Jefferson,Robin L. Jarrett
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-2445.2004.00004.x
• Published date: 01 March 2004
• Date: 01 March 2004

Women’s Danger Management Strategies in an Inner-City Housing

Project*

Robin L. Jarrett** and Stephanie M. Jefferson

The danger management strategies of low-income African American women who live in a public housing community char-

acterized by chronic violence are examined. Based on qualitative interviews with 18 single mothers, we explored the violent

community dangers with which women contend, the nature of this violence, the strategies used to deal with community violence,

and their benefits and costs to family and community life. Findings show that multiple types of violence characterized life in the

community and that this violence has specific physical locations, a particular set of actors, and a temporal rhythm. Women’s

responses to violence were nonconfrontational and family focused in nature. These efforts were effective in keeping women and

their children safe, but did not reduce the prevalence of violence.

Scholarly discussions of impoverished African American

inner-city communities document the chronic violence

that characterizes these settings. Gang warfare, drug

wars, physical assaults, and other forms of interpersonal violence

are a part of daily life (Popkin, Gwiasda, Olson, Rosenbaum, &

Buron, 2000; Puntenney, 1997). Neighborhood effects models (e.g.,

resource, collective socialization, epidemic)derived from demo-

graphic data have addressed how particular economic (joblessness),

compositional (concentration of impoverished residents), and organ-

izational (breakdown of informal social controls)features of

inner-city communities contribute to crime and violence

(Sampson, 2001b; Skogan, 1990; Wilson, 1987). Further, proponents

of neighborhood effects models argue that families living in such

communities are impaired in their ability to create stable domestic

lives (Jencks & Mayer, 1990; Wilson). These models have

contributed to our understanding of chronic community violence

because they highlight the contextual underpinnings of ongoing vio-

lence, shifting away from individualistic explanations. They also

suggest the consequences of community context for family life and

identify the processes by which families are destabilized.

We argue that these models are limited in a fundamental

way: Community-level neighborhood effects models are overly

deterministic in their imputation of family instability. They tell

us nothing about the personal strategies that families use to

buffer themselves from the real challenges of community vio-

lence (Jarrett, 1994, 1997).

Several recent qualitative studies concentrate on the personal

experiences of poor African American families, specifically

women, and describe how they respond to chronic community

violence (Popkin et al., 2000; Puntenney, 1997; Wolfer, 2000).

These studies focused on public housing projects where crime

and violence are intensified in dense and isolated settings, and

they revealed that women use multiple coping strategies to deal

with community violence. Nonconfrontational and family

focused in nature, key strategies allow women to maintain viable

family lives in the midst of ongoing violence. Although these

studies explored an understudied area (Wolfer)and identified

how women’s strategies facilitate viable family life, they have

critical limitations. They did not specifically consider the impli-

cations of their micro-level findings for larger community-level

explanatory frameworks. Moreover, given the limited number of

recent qualitative studies, it is unclear how common the

described coping strategies are.

Our purpose was to examine how a group of poor African

American women living in a public housing project manage the

chronic violence that pervades their community. We addressed a

critical gap in the field: that between community-level and

micro-level explanatory frameworks. Insights gleaned were

used to examine neighborhood effects models critically and to

contribute to the growing body of qualitative studies of adult

coping in response to ongoing violence.

We organized our discussion around several issues. First, we

review neighborhood effects models that detail how economic,

compositional, and organizational characteristics of inner-city

African American communities promote chronic violence. We

also include qualitative studies that describe how women living

in communities characterized by chronic violence cope with

these conditions. Next, we describe our qualitative study that

addresses how women, despite the often inhospitable settings in

which they live, cope with chronic community violence. We

present narratives from African American women to illustrate

the types and nature of community violence, the multiple coping

strategies that women use to deal with community violence, and

the benefits and costs of these strategies. Finally, we discuss

how our findings can be used to elaborate community-level

explanations and how they contribute to the growing body of

qualitative research on women’s coping strategies.

Review of the Literature

Neighborhood Effects Models

Community-level neighborhood effects models have identi-

fied how economic, compositional, and organizational condi-

tions promote deviant activities such as crime and violence in

*The researchreported in this article was supportedby a Faculty Scholar Award fromthe

W. T. Grant Foundation and Hatch and Center for Advanced Studies Funding from the

University of Illinois. Early foundational work for the article was supported by a National

Science Foundation Award for the Study of Race, Urban Poverty, and Social Policy

(Northwestern University); a grant from the Social Science Research Council’s Program on

the Urban Underclass; and a Visiting Scholar Award from the Russell Sage Foundation.

Members of the Social Science Research Council’s Working Group on Communities and

Neighborhoods,Family Processes, and IndividualDevelopment and the MacArthur Foundation

Working Group on Successful Pathways through Middle Childhood helped stimulate ideas

expressedin this article. With great cultural competencyand sensitivity, Verda Hestercollected

thedata reported here. Doris Houstonexpertly assisted withdata analysis. Special appreciationis

extended to the women whowillingly shared their lives with us.

**Address correspondenceto: Dr. Robin Jarrett, Department of Humanand Community

Development, University of Illinois, D269 Bevier Hall, MC-180, 905 S Goodwin Avenue,

Urbana, IL 61801.

Key Words: African American, coping strategies, family, public housing, violence,

women.

(Family Relations, 2004, 53, 138–147)

2004, Vol. 53, No. 2 Family Relations