negative life outcomes for inner city children, in terms of their physical, psychological, emotional, and social growth. My research will attempt to determine the extent to which crime, lack of strong public schools, the prevalence of single-mother households, and other environmental conditions have an impact upon child development. My dissertation will take a qualitative, grounded theory approach. In the grounded theory approach, a theory about the study participants' experience is created inductively, rather than deductively. In other words, I will interview my study subjects and by coding their responses to semi-structured inquiries, I will develop a theory based upon those responses regarding the experiences of childhood development in inner cities.

My subjects will be drawn from schools which are located within urban areas and have had challenges regarding student academic performance and dropout rates. Students, parents, and teachers from these representative communities will be interviewed. With the grounded theory approach,...
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