Building on Burgess's (1925) Concentric Zone Theory, Shaw and McKay

Essay

Building on Burgess's (1925) concentric zone theory, Shaw and McKay (1930) developed social disorganization theory. Social disorganization of neighborhoods is, according to Shaw and McKay (1942), characterized by a combination of persistent poverty, racial/ethnical heterogeneity, transiency (rapid/frequent population turnover), and urbanism, which in turn is fueling the disruption of core social institutions, such as the family, the church community, and schools. It was hypothesized that crime is more likely to occur in the core of the city and the enclosing zone in transition, with crime decreasing with the distance from the center. In the contemporary United States, an invert trend can be witnessed. Urban revitalization appears to invert Burgess's concentric zone theory and Shaw and McKay's (1930) social disorganization theory, with more and more wealthy and educated individuals moving back into the core. You want to test this inverse trend by analyzing the levels of perceived neighborhood problems (using a scale of 1-15, where 15 represents the highest level of perceived neighborhood problems) of a random sample of 40 individuals living in Minneapolis and its suburbs. Although Burgess's concentric zone theory entails five zones (central business district, zone in transition, working man, residential, and commuter), you decide to compare the mean levels of perceived neighborhood problems of residents from downtown, residential areas, and suburbs. You select an alpha level of 0.05. The descriptive information is presented in the table below.
$$\begin{array} { | c | c | c | } \hline \text { Downtown } & \text { Residential } & \text { Suburbs } \\\hline 8 & 5 & 13 \\\hline 7 & 7 & 10 \\\hline 5 & 9 & 14 \\\hline 10 & 11 & 11 \\\hline 11 & 6 & 8 \\\hline 8 & 8 & 6 \\\hline 9 & 10 & 13 \\\hline 13 & 6 & 12 \\\hline 12 & 4 & 11 \\\hline 10 & 8 & 9 \\\hline 6 & 8 & 6 \\\hline 12 & 12 & 14 \\\hline 9 & & 12 \\\hline 7 & & \\\hline 12 & & \\\hline\end{array}$$
a. Indicate which variable is the IV and which is the DV. Also indicate the level of measurement for each variable.
b. State your null and alternative hypotheses.
c. Compute:
i. The group mean.
ii. Grand mean.
iii. Standard deviation for each group.
iv. Sum of squares.
v. The degrees of freedom (within and between).
vi.f
d. State the decision rule
e. Make a decision and interpret your findings.