Abstract
With the deepening of China’s housing market reform, the spatial agglomeration of resources has become prominent. The impact of this new form of neighborhood environment on adolescents’ cognitive abilities is often neglected in the current discussion. In this paper, we use the 2013–2014 China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) data to explain the neighborhood effect on adolescents’ early cognitive abilities from the perspective of community occupational skill levels. We also use the instrumental variable based on the three-level spatial structure of region-city-community to correct the endogenous problems. The results show that in the stage of junior high school education, higher community occupational skills and their diversity play a positive role in promoting adolescents’ cognitive abilities. The family and self-education expectations caused by the community role model effect play a role in the transmission mechanism. Adolescents’ individual characteristics, social interactions, and community resource hardware produce differentiated images of cognitive abilities. Public education resources and school life auxiliary investment can alleviate the negative effect of poor community occupational skills on adolescent cognitive abilities. This paper has important practical significance for the formulation of intervention policies for educational equity.