文摘
An important frontier in context effects research is investigating nonlinear and threshold effects. There is ample theoretical foundation for suggesting that several endogenous social processes generate nonlinear relationships between measures of neighborhood social composition and a variety of outcomes for individual residents. There is also a growing international body of statistical literature testifying to the existence of nonlinear and threshold effects, though the findings are often inconsistent, especially in the European-based scholarship. Further empirical research on this topic is crucial because identifying the precise nature of nonlinear and threshold effects provides both a necessary social efficiency justification and practical programmatic guidance for policies designed to encourage more social diversity within neighborhoods.