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Collective Efficacy, Authoritative Parenting and Delinquency: A Longitudinal Test of a Model Integrating Community- and Family-Level Processes
Abstract
In this paper, we develop and test hypotheses on how authoritative parenting and collective efficacy combine to increase a child's risk of affiliating with deviant peers and engaging in delinquent behavior. Analyses using two waves of data from a sample of several hundred African American caregivers and their children largely supported the predictions. Over time, increases in collective efficacy within a community were associated with increases in authoritative parenting. Further, both authoritative parenting and collective efficacy served to deter affiliation with deviant peers and involvement in delinquent behavior. Finally, there was evidence of an amplification process whereby the deterrent effect of authoritative parenting on affiliation with deviant peers and delinquency was enhanced when it was administered within a community with high collective efficacy.
... Scholars have investigated whether collective efficacy-measured at the communitylevel-predicts individual-level crime. Overall, these studies have found that the effect of collective efficacy on youth offending is inconclusive (Fagan & Wright, 2012;Fagan, Wright, & Pinchevsky, 2014;Maimon & Browning, 2010;Molnar, Cerda, Roberts, & Buka, 2008;Sampson et al., 2005;Sharkey, 2006;Simons, Simons, Burt, Brody, & Cutrona, 2005). Sampson (2012) acknowledges the lack of conclusive evidence of a direct link between neighborhood-level collective efficacy and individual-level offending and suggests that this may be due to the situationally located character of collective efficacy. ...
... In particular, studies have shown that collective efficacy moderates and mediates the effect of important micro-level predictors. Thus, collective efficacy increases the impact of impulsivity on crime (Zimmerman, 2010), attenuates the effect of youth's unstructured socializing on violent behavior (Maimon & Browning, 2010), increases street efficacy 2 (Sharkey, 2006), and promotes authoritative parenting while increasing its protective effect on delinquent peer associations and delinquent behavior (Simons et al., 2005). In this sense, we believe that social disorganization theory can explain individual-level offending, as initially proposed by Shaw and McKay (1942), if it recognizes that collective efficacy has objective and subjective dimensions that are crime reducing. ...
... Most studies of offending within the social disorganization framework have measured collective efficacy aggregating adult neighbors' reports about their reciprocal expectations for social control and trust and have focused on youth offending (Maimon & Browning, 2010;Molnar et al., 2008;Sampson et al., 2005;Sharkey, 2006;Simons et al., 2005;Zimmerman, 2010). However, this definition of collective efficacy omits that individuals may differ in their subjective perceptions of their neighborhood's level of collective efficacy and that they may be more likely to commit crimes if their subjective collective efficacy is low. ...
This study seeks to reaffirm the value of collective efficacy as a theory of offending and highlight a crucial individual-level mechanism through which collective efficacy may operate: individual-level perceived collective efficacy—subjective collective efficacy. We highlight the need to distinguish between individual-level perceptions of collective efficacy and the macro-level construct of collective efficacy. Analyzing data from the PHDCN, our study revealed that neighborhood levels of collective efficacy did not exert a direct effect on offending. However, neighborhood-level collective efficacy decreased offending indirectly through individual-level subjective collective efficacy. Our research suggests that scholars need to expand upon their conceptualization of collective efficacy and seek a more nuanced understanding of how collective efficacy operates at the macro and micro levels. In particular, we conclude that subjective collective efficacy should be understood as a cognitive landscape—a way of seeing the world—and be given theoretical and empirical attention.
... Since the 1990s, studies in Western countries have presented empirical evidence that a child's neighborhood is related to variations in development (Minh et al. 2017). Neighborhood research has largely focused on such neighborhood structural dimensions as poverty rates or concentrated disadvantages and have relied on census data to assess structural characteristics (Minh et al. 2017;Sampson 2008;Simons et al. 2005). In recent years, however, studies have begun to look at neighborhood social processes that are more proximate to the everyday life of children in the neighborhood than the static aspects of structural neighborhood characteristics (Sampson et al. 2002;Simons et al. 2005). ...
... Neighborhood research has largely focused on such neighborhood structural dimensions as poverty rates or concentrated disadvantages and have relied on census data to assess structural characteristics (Minh et al. 2017;Sampson 2008;Simons et al. 2005). In recent years, however, studies have begun to look at neighborhood social processes that are more proximate to the everyday life of children in the neighborhood than the static aspects of structural neighborhood characteristics (Sampson et al. 2002;Simons et al. 2005). Neighborhood social processes, in particular, are attracting attention because they may be easier to modify than neighborhood structural risks (Haegerich et al. 2014;Hoagwood et al. 2018). ...
... Since the publication of Sampson et al.'s seminal study (1997), which revealed a negative correlation between neighborhood-level collective efficacy and criminal victimization, child development studies that used the multilevel model and demonstrated neighborhood-level collective efficacy have shown reduces deviant behaviors (Browning et al. 2008;Jain et al. 2010;Simons et al. 2005). Several studies reported that neighborhood collective efficacy is associated with children's mental health (e.g., Drukker et al. 2003;Dupéré et al. 2012;Xue et al. 2005). ...
This study examined the relationship between neighborhood collective efficacy and children’s mental health problems in South Korea. With data from the Korean National Survey of the Present Status of Children and from the Korean Statistical Information Service and Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare, multilevel regression models were developed to assess the association between neighborhood collective efficacy and mental health problems of 1964 children aged 9 to 17 years. The analyses controlled for a host of individual-level variables and for neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage. The primary finding was that neighborhood collective efficacy had protective associations with children’s self-reported mental health problems after controlling for confounders. This outcome suggests that policies aimed at improving the mental health of South Korean children should include community-level interventions to build and strengthen neighborhood collective efficacy.
... Research has linked the high rate of prevalence to parenting styles, as evidence has shown that effective parenting style could protect adolescents from risky relationships and situations [4,5]. As an important correlate of delinquency in criminological research, authoritative parenting style has been found to operate as an effective parenting style in inhibiting juvenile delinquency [6][7][8][9]. However, unlike its impact on delinquent behavior, the influence of authoritative parenting on crime victimization has only been sparsely investigated in empirical research conducted in western and eastern societies. ...
... We build a theoretical model linking authoritative parenting to crime victimization, which incorporates both a direct effect and several indirect effects through mental health problems, delinquent peer association, and delinquency. These mediators are selected because they have been shown to be potentially connected to parenting styles as response variables and as predictors of crime victimization in prior research [8,10,11]. ...
... A substantial body of sociological and psychological studies examining the relationship between parenting styles and children's psychosocial development have corroborated that the most effective parenting combines demandingness with responsiveness [8,9,15,16]. Demandingness is defined as parents' capability to provide close monitoring and willingness to discipline and confront the child who is in breach of rules. ...
Empirical research on the relationship between authoritative parenting and crime victimization has been sparse, although this style of parenting has been identified as an effective parenting practice for inhibiting offending behavior among children and adolescents. The current research aims at filling this gap by examining the influences of authoritative parenting on juvenile delinquency and crime victimization, as well as the mechanisms connecting the processes. Using two-wave survey data collected from a probability sample of 1066 Chinese adolescents, the current study employed a structural equation modeling analysis to test the relationships. The results indicated that authoritative parenting negatively predicted juvenile delinquency and crime victimization. Further, adolescent mental health problems and delinquent peer association partially mediated the influence of authoritative parenting on delinquency, while adolescent mental health problems, delinquent peer association, and juvenile delinquency fully mediated the relationship between authoritative parenting and crime victimization. The results also showed that juvenile delinquency positively predicted future crime victimization. Overall, this study demonstrated that authoritative parenting operated as a protective factor against juvenile delinquency and crime victimization.
... Although ties between parents and school personnel may not necessarily have a direct influence on student achievement (Morgan & Sørensen, 1999), evidence suggests that strong home-school bonds may produce greater commitment among students to social norms that help to support school safety (Valdimarsdottir & Bernburg, 2015). The presence of parent volunteers may also transmit influential symbolic cues that signify social control, thereby dissuading students from engaging in problem behaviors in school (Kirk & Sampson, 2011;Simons, Simons, Burt, Brody, & Cutrona, 2005). The overall strengthening of collective efficacy, connectedness of the school community, and perceived social control through school-based parent volunteering may create conditions and norms that contribute to student safety (Forsyth et al., 2011;Kirk & Sampson, 2011;Simons et al., 2005). ...
... The presence of parent volunteers may also transmit influential symbolic cues that signify social control, thereby dissuading students from engaging in problem behaviors in school (Kirk & Sampson, 2011;Simons, Simons, Burt, Brody, & Cutrona, 2005). The overall strengthening of collective efficacy, connectedness of the school community, and perceived social control through school-based parent volunteering may create conditions and norms that contribute to student safety (Forsyth et al., 2011;Kirk & Sampson, 2011;Simons et al., 2005). ...
... Schools located in disadvantaged urban neighborhoods were identified for analysis by using a welldocumented composite measure of neighborhood concentrated disadvantage (Sampson, 2012;Simons et al., 2005). This measure was generated using factor analysis for the following tract-level variables from the ACS: family poverty rate, percentage of single female households, unemployment rate, percentage of African American households, percentage of households receiving public assistance, and percentage of people older than 25 years of age who hold less than a high school degree. ...
Schools located in disadvantaged urban neighborhoods report disproportionately high rates of crime and violence. Theoretical reasoning suggests that school-based parent participation may lead to improved school safety in these settings, but little empirical work has tested this relationship. This study examines the relationship between school-based parent volunteering and two measures of school safety by using data from five waves of the School Survey on Crime and Safety, Common Core Data, and the American Community Survey. Results from analyses of 12,698 schools indicated that school-based parent volunteering is associated with improved school safety, controlling for school organizational features, sociodemographic characteristics, and neighborhood-level crime. For schools in disadvantaged urban neighborhoods, this relationship persisted with parent volunteering being associated with less school crime and violence and student bodily harm. Findings establish a need for future research to determine whether parent volunteering may be a tool for enhancing school safety.
... Social control theory proposes that youth who are emotionally attached to parents and aspire to have educational and career attainment are less likely to engage in deviant behaviors. This is because that the involvement in delinquency may disappoint their parents (Hart and Mueller, 2013;Hay, 2001;Hirschi, 1969) and undermine the path toward educational and career success (Onder and Yilmaz, 2012;Simons et al., 2005;Unnever et al., 2003). Routine activities theory, in contrast, focuses on the more direct and instrumental control on youth-the supervision on youth. ...
... The absence of authority figures and weak parental monitoring breed delinquency because they diminish conventional responses to punish misbehaviors (Baumrind, 1997;Hagan, 1989;Osgood et al., 1996). Empirically, under the routine activities framework, studies find that parental monitoring inhibits delinquency net of the effects of social bonds (Osgood et al., 1996;Sweeten et al., 2013) and delinquent peer association (Simons et al., 2005;Wright and Cullen, 2001). ...
... For instance, Kohen and colleagues (2008) found that neighborhood disadvantage was negatively associated with children's verbal abilities. Further, youth who live in areas of concentrated disadvantage have little social capital, poor physical and mental health, high rates of substance use (Mennis and Mason 2012) and delinquency (Simons et al. 2005), as well as lower educational attainment (Wickrama and Noh 2010). This may be due, in part, to the ways in which neighborhood disadvantage negatively impacts parenting. ...
... Neighborhood disadvantage was, however, negatively correlated with nurturant-involved parenting. This is consistent with past research showing that families living in disadvantaged neighborhoods are often challenged when it comes to engaging in optimal parenting practices (Gutman et al. 2005;Simons et al. 2005). In addition, nurturant-involved parenting was positively associated with parental investment, suggesting that parents who engage in the supportive parenting practices associated with positive youth outcomes also tend to facilitate their child's participation in activities. ...
Academic success is a strong predictor of adolescent adjustment and subsequent adult social, psychological, and economic well-being. Importantly, research has established a negative relationship between family economic hardship and children’s educational outcomes. Despite being disproportionately represented among the most financially disadvantaged, African Americans remain an understudied group. The current study utilizes a longitudinal study design and prospective data from the Family and Community Health Study (n = 422, 52% girls, average age = 10.5 years at Wave 1), an African American sample, to investigate the impact of economic hardship on adolescent academic engagement by testing explanations offered by two commonly employed perspectives: the parental investment model and family stress model. While both models yielded significant results when tested separately, only the processes specified by the family stress model remained significant in a combined model, demonstrating that it is the superior explanation. By addressing many of the deficits of past research on the parental investment model and family stress model, the study was able to shed new light on the specific pathways by which economic disadvantage exerts an effect on youth outcomes. In doing so, the results question whether potentially middle-class, Eurocentric models (e.g., the parental investment model) are applicable when studying economically distressed African American youth.
... Positive community factors (e.g. neighborhood involvement and cohesion) are associated with more positive parenting practices (Silk, Sessa, & Morris, 2004;Simons, Simons, Burt, Brody, & Cutrona, 2005;Zolotor & Runyan, 2006). Among African American women experiencing adversity (e.g. ...
... Given the associations between profile indicators (e.g. spirituality, social support, community cohesion) and positive parenting practices described in the literature reviewed above, we hypothesized that classes characterized with higher resilience resources, relative to other classes, will evidence more positive parenting practices (Blais et al., 2014;Goeke-Morey & Cummings, 2017;Kotchick et al., 2005;Letourneau et al., 2007;Sexton et al., 2015;Simons et al., 2005). The second aim of this study is to explore whether HIV and IPV status are differentially related to mothers' patterns of resilience resources. ...
Objective. Few studies have explored associations between strength-based factors and positive parenting among mothers experiencing adversity. Adopting a person-centered statistical approach, we examined how patterns of maternal strengths relate to positive parenting practices. Design. Participants were 188 female primary caregivers (71% African American) who experienced intimate partner violence and/or were living with HIV. Women were recruited from community organizations in the Mid-Southern United States and completed measures of adaptability, spirituality, ethnic identity, social support, parent-child communication, community cohesion, and parenting practices. Latent profile analysis was used to generate classes of individual (adaptability, spirituality, education), relational (family support, friend support, parent-child communication about Substance Abuse, Violence, and AIDS/HIV), and contextual (ethnic identity, community cohesion) factors, in line with the social-ecological model of resilience. Associations between the classes and positive parenting practices were examined. Results. Three classes emerged: (1) Low Individual, Relational, & Contextual (LIRC; n = 18); (2) Low SAVA Communication (LSC; n = 30); and (3) High Individual, Relational, & Contextual (HIRC; n = 140). Mothers in the LIRC class reported lower parental involvement and less positive parenting practices than those in the HIRC class. Conclusions. Mothers who endorse increased individual, relational, and contextual factors utilize more positive parenting practices. Optimal clinical approaches to enhance parenting should target supports at multiple levels.
... No research, however, has examined the effect of gene by neighborhood interactions on inflammatory burden and health. Given evidence that neighborhood effects on human behavior are often moderated by individual characteristics and experiences [54,63,64] and that genetic differences are a potential source of inflammatory response [9,65], it seems likely that genetic variation may condition the impact of neighborhood adversity on inflammatory burden and physical health. ...
... The measures of neighborhood characteristics were created using the 2000 Census Summary Tape File 3 (STF3A), which was geocoded with participants' residential addresses. Additional details regarding neighborhood data can be found in Simons [64] and Lei [57]. The current study is based upon the 325 female respondents who were nested within 88 Census tracts, who agreed to provide a saliva sample and biomarkers, and for whom data on all of the study measures, including systemic social observation neighborhoods data, were available at Wave 5. ...
The present study extends prior research on the link between neighborhood disorder and health by testing an integrated model that combines various social and biological factors. Hypotheses were tested using a sample of 325 African American women from the Family and Community Health Study (FACHS). As expected, inflammatory burden was the biophysiological mechanism that mediated much of the association between neighborhood physical disorder and perceived physical health. This finding provided additional support for the view that global self-ratings of health are powerful predictors of morbidity because, in large measure, they are indicators of chronic, systemic inflammation. Further, both genetic variation and marital status served to moderate the association between neighborhood disorder and health. Finally, being married largely eliminated the probability that neighborhood disorder would combine with genetic vulnerability to increase inflammatory burden and perceived illness. Overall, the findings demonstrate the value of constructing integrated models that specify various biophysiological mechanisms that link social conditions to physical health.
... Uninvolved parenting is also associated with childhood depressive symptoms in a sample of African-American children, along with racial discrimination and criminal victimization (Simons et al., 2002). Authoritative parenting styles are particularly effective at deterring offending in communities characterized by high collective efficacy (Simons et al., 2005). In disadvantaged neighbourhoods, nurturant and involved parenting together with collective socialization are inversely associated with children's deviant peer affiliations, whereas harsh and inconsistent parenting are positively associated with this proxy for offending (Brody et al., 2001). ...
... (Young Person 1, Focus Group 2; also quoted in Benier et al., 2018: 34) Anecdotally, this illustrates how community-led interventions may supplement parental support by mitigating the consequences of indiscriminate labelling for stigmatized young people. This is seemingly consistent with research that suggests that the protective effects of authoritative parenting styles are enhanced in communities characterized by high collective efficacy (Simons et al., 2005). It further highlights the potential significance of positive community ethnic self-identification (Simons et al., 2002) when it comes to challenging the depressive effects of stigmatization. ...
Parenting can impact young people’s justice system involvement but there is a scarcity of research that examines how parenting practices, specifically mothering, are influenced by labelling processes. Accordingly, this article considers how the labelling of young people from forced migration backgrounds as criminals impacted mothering and maternal efficacy during a ‘law and order crisis’ in Melbourne, Australia. Drawing on interviews and focus groups with mothers and young people of South Sudanese heritage, we illustrate how this hostile social climate generated secondary stigma, and amplified anxieties and concerns about inclusivity and belonging. The research advances our theoretical understanding of parental control and parental efficacy in the post-settlement context by bringing the gendered experiences of mothers as providers of supervision and support into focus. It suggests labelling may undermine maternal efficacy and exacerbate intercultural and intergenerational tensions, but that community involvement may support parents and mitigate the risk of deviance amplification.
... Collective efficacy has been linked (inversely) to a range of detrimental outcomes at both the individual and neighborhood levels of analysis. There is evidence that low levels of neighborhood collective efficacy are associated with individual-level violence [45,47,60], delinquent peer affiliation [63], drug use [25], early onset of sexual activity [11], poor self-esteem [14], and poor school performance [24]. At the neighborhood level, low levels of collective efficacy are associated with increased rates of violence [49,[56][57][58][59], depression [1], suicidal behavior [46], diminished health [28], and decreased birth weight [48]. ...
... Drawing on this vast body of work, we argue that the family represents a critical source of information in the process of collective efficacy formation. Moreover, we contend that understanding the link between parents' and children's perceptions of collective efficacy is critical, given the following: (1) the well-documented relationships between family processes (e.g., parent-child attachment/bonds, parental support, parental incarceration) and subsequent criminality [35,36,62]; (2) evidence of the relationships between collective efficacy and maladaptive psychosocial outcomes throughout the life course [11,45,60,63]; and (3) the possibility that previously documented relationships between neighborhood factors and youth perceptions of collective efficacy may be confounded by family support and parents' perceptions of collective efficacy. ...
Purpose
Despite the rich history of empirical research on neighborhood collective efficacy, studies considering the factors that contribute to collective efficacy formation at the individual level have yet to account for family members’ perceptions of collective efficacy. This study examines whether individuals form perceptions of neighborhood collective efficacy through knowledge of their geographic locales or via the intra-familial transmission of perceptions of collective efficacy.
Methods
This study appends information from the following three distinct samples of adults in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN): 349 young adult respondents, their primary caregivers (n = 349), and an independent sample of over 8000 adults distributed across 146 neighborhoods. Interviews with respondents (average age 20 years; 53.87% female) and their primary caregivers were conducted from 2000 to 2002. Regression analysis adjusting for clustering and mediation macros was utilized to examine the research questions.
Results
At baseline, neighborhood collective efficacy was associated with respondents’ perceptions of collective efficacy. The impact of neighborhood collective efficacy, however, was mediated completely by parents’ perceptions of collective efficacy. Parents’ perceptions of collective efficacy, family support, and concentrated disadvantage were the strongest predictors of respondents’ perceptions of collective efficacy.
Conclusion
Findings suggest that neighborhood collective efficacy can be altered through family processes as well as by changing the structural characteristics of broader social settings. Increasing collective efficacy—and social capital more generally—may be best facilitated intergenerationally from parents to their children.
... For example, Pratt et al. (2004) found that in neighbourhoods with weak informal social control, parents were less likely to supervise their children. Simons et al. (2005) showed that increases in collective efficacy within a community were associated with increases in positive, i.e. authoritative, parenting. Furthermore, Simons et al. (2005) showed that the deterrent effect of positive parenting on adolescents' contacts with deviant peers and delinquency was enhanced in neighbourhoods with high levels of collective efficacy. ...
... Simons et al. (2005) showed that increases in collective efficacy within a community were associated with increases in positive, i.e. authoritative, parenting. Furthermore, Simons et al. (2005) showed that the deterrent effect of positive parenting on adolescents' contacts with deviant peers and delinquency was enhanced in neighbourhoods with high levels of collective efficacy. ...
Children are nested in families, and families are nested within communities (e.g. neighbourhoods). This implies that the behaviour of both children and their parents is influenced by external and contextual factors. The aim of the present study was to explore the relationship between parental monitoring and neighbourhood disorder and collective efficacy from the perspective of the adolescent and to investigate how perceived monitoring and neighbourhood characteristics were related to and interact in predicting adolescent offending. The characteristics of the adolescent’s neighbourhoods were assessed using two different data sources: adolescents’ own perceptions and an independent, aggregated measure from a community survey. The analyses showed that the adolescents’ perceptions of neighbourhood level of disorder and collective efficacy were associated with both adolescent-perceived parental monitoring and adolescent offending, while the corresponding measures from the community survey were not. As regards the prediction of offending, adolescent-perceived parental monitoring is the most important predictor. Neither collective efficacy nor disorder appear to interact with parental monitoring in explaining adolescent offending. Future research would contribute to the field by examining the effect and interaction between the study variables in a sample with younger adolescents as well as by including parents’ perceptions. As to practical implications, our results indicate that families living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods may benefit from targeted support aimed at handling negative neighbourhood influences.
... Amplified advantages refer to how the benefits of effective parent-child relationship are higher for adolescents living in good neighborhoods (White et al., 2012). Previous research revealed an amplification process whereby the positive effect of family environment on adolescents' interpersonal and behavioral outcomes (i.e., decreasing affiliation with deviant peers and delinquency) was enhanced within a high-quality neighborhood (Simons et al., 2005). Adolescents who perceive their neighborhoods as safe and satisfactory believe that they have a safe environment to socialize with their neighbors (Ruijsbroek et al., 2015;Won et al., 2016), so the effect of the safety net provided by high-quality parent-adolescents relationships on the accumulation of PsyCap may be reinforced by safe and satisfactory neighborhoods. ...
This study expanded current understanding of the previously demonstrated association between parent-adolescent relationships and friendship quality. A moderated mediation model was constructed to examine whether adolescent psychological capital (PsyCap) mediated this association and whether the result was further moderated by neighborhood safety and satisfaction. This was a cross-sectional study for which we recruited 733 adolescents (Mage =15.08 years, SD =1.96) in Macao, China. Participants completed questionnaires regarding their parent-adolescent relationships, PsyCap, neighborhood safety and satisfaction, and friendship quality. After controlling for gender and age, it was found that the positive association between parent-adolescent relationships and friendship quality was partially mediated by PsyCap. Moreover, neighborhood safety and satisfaction moderated the second stage of the indirect effect. Specifically, the positive effect of PsyCap on friendship quality was much stronger for adolescents reporting high as opposed to low level of neighborhood safety and satisfaction. The results underscore the importance of integrating the conservation of resources theory, ecological model, and the model of individual ↔ context relations, to understand how and when parent-adolescent relationships are associated with friendship quality. These findings also highlight the need to simultaneously consider family, neighborhood, and individual factors when developing effective interventions to improve adolescent friendship quality.
... Researchers have suggested that the influence of neighborhood disorder on adolescent religiosity may be through parents and peers, the two primary influences on religious development. Research has found that neighborhood disorder affects parenting practices (Simons, Lin, Gordon, Brody, & Conger, 2002;Leventhal, Dupéré, & Brooks-Gunn, 2009;Lamis, Wilso, Tarantino, Landsford, & Kaslow, 2014), and in turn it can deter adolescents' involvement in delinquent behaviors and affiliation with deviant peers (Simons, Burt, Brody, & Cutrona, 2005;Chun & Steinberg, 2006). For instance, highly spiritual African American fathers may be more likely to use proactive parenting practices to decrease their child's exposure to community violence in high-violence neighborhoods, and they are also more likely to use authoritative parenting styles with their sons (Letiecq, 2007). ...
Religiosity and spirituality have been an important component within the African
American culture throughout U.S. history. Previous research has documented the
importance of religion to African Americans, particularly in terms of coping with the
negative experiences they face in the U.S. While many studies have focused on the
the positive impact of religiosity and spirituality on African American’s mental health, fewer studies have addressed the change in African American’s religiosity over time, especially during the period when they transition from adolescence into young adulthood.
Adolescence is a crucial developmental transition and can disclose a tremendous amount
of knowledge about religious socialization and change in the life course. Utilizing data
from the Family and Community Health Study (FACHS), a longitudinal study that
examines African American families, this study extends the current state of the literature
by examining and identifying multiple trajectories in African American adolescents’
religious development. Overall, there was a significant decline in religiosity during both
adolescence and young adulthood. There was also individual variability in the change in
religiosity during both developmental periods. Parental religiosity and deviant peer
affiliation continued to have a significant impact on African American religiosity during
both adolescence and young adulthood. Other sociocultural factors that predicted long-term growth, decline, or stability in their religiosity were also examined. Finally,
the implications of these findings, as well as future directions for research on these
relationships, are discussed.
... This style is negatively associated with externalizing behavior and internalizing behavior problems in adolescent and childhood (Steinberg et al., 1994;Steinberg et al., 2006). However, authoritative parenting refers to decrease the chances of deviant peer association (Hawkins et al., 1998;Simons et al., 2005). ...
The core objective of this study was to assess the role of socioeconomic status and parenting practices in the construction of violent behavior among youth. To get the fruitful results, data was collected from 465 students that were selected from three public sector universities (Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan, Islamia University Bahawalpur and Ghazi University, Dera Ghazi khan) by using multistage sampling technique. However, Data was collected by using the self-administrated questionnaire. The findings of co-relation analysis revealed that socioeconomic status of the respondents (e.g. gender of the respondents, current residence, father's work place, ownership of house and place of residence) and parenting practices (e.g. Authoritative, Authoritarian and Permissive) had a significant correlation with violent behavior. Similarly, the findings of stepwise regression revealed that socioeconomic status (gender, father's occupation, mother's qualification, father's qualification, ownership of house) of the respondents and Parenting practice (Authoritative) were significant predictors of violent behavior among youth. It suggested that proper parental supervision and less communication gap between parents and children can become helpful to overcome the violent behavior among youth.
... This research suggests that family risk factors may amplify the negative effects of a disadvantaged neighborhood environment, whereas positive family environments may buffer children from the negative consequences of a disadvantaged neighborhood. Findings are consistent with the amplification model, which argues that the effects of individual and family factors are amplified in high-risk neighborhood contexts (Moffitt, 1993;Simons et al., 2005). However, other research has found that neighborhood risk actually lessens the impact of family and individual risk factorsincluding low self-control and maltreatment-on antisocial behavior and victimization (Gibson, 2012;Wright & Fagan, 2013;Zimmerman, 2010;Zimmerman & Messner, 2011). ...
This article examines whether heart rate stress reactivity interacts with neighborhood disadvantage to predict antisocial behavior. Antisocial behavior was assessed in a community sample of 445 males and females ( M age = 11.92 years), using respondent and parent measures of antisocial behavior. Heart rate stress reactivity interacted with neighborhood disadvantage to predict parent-reported antisocial behavior. Specifically, the relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and antisocial behavior was stronger among children with lower heart rate reactivity. This study is the first to find that heart rate stress reactivity interacts with the neighborhood environment to predict antisocial behavior. Findings demonstrate the importance of examining biological factors in conjunction with the broader environmental context to understand the development of antisocial behavior.
... There are, however, a few exceptions. Simons et al. (2005) found in a longitudinal study (two waves) of African American families that collective efficacy was positively related to authoritative parenting, a construct which includes parental monitoring. Similarly, Zuberi (2016), in a crosssectional study of adolescents, found that collective efficacy was associated with greater parental knowledge and control. ...
Social disorganization theory argues that disadvantaged neighborhoods will have less cohesion and control, and therefore will be less conducive to effective parental monitoring. This study aims to test these relationships using four waves of the Pitt Mother and Child Project (ages 11, 12, 15, and 17). The sample consists of 185 low-income males and their parents, 56.44% of whom identify as White, and 34.67% of whom identify African American. Crossed-lagged path models were estimated and the indirect effect of neighborhood disadvantage on parental monitoring through neighborhood cohesion and control was estimated. Separate models were estimated for parental and adolescent perceptions of parental monitoring. The results demonstrate a positive relationship between parental perception of neighborhood social cohesion and parental monitoring, and a negative relationship found between parental perceptions of neighborhood social control and parental monitoring in both models. The findings of this study suggests that neighborhoods may be an important target for interventions that are aiming to improve parental monitoring and ultimately adolescent outcomes.
... Subsequent studies have drawn from earlier findings on a variety of outcomes and specifications, concluding that concentrated disadvantage and collective efficacy predicted homicide (Morenoff et al., 2001), observed and perceived disorder (Sampson and Raudenbush, 1999) and unstructured socializing with peers and violence among urban youth (Maimon and Browning, 2010). Outside Chicago, a study found that a measure of collective efficacy predicted perceived neighbourhood violence in Mesa, Arizona (Armstrong et al., 2015), and results from Georgia and Iowa similarly showed a negative association between collective efficacy and self-reported delinquency (Simons et al., 2005). However, a study conducted in Denver, Colorado, found little to no effect of social control or cohesion on self-reported delinquency (Kingston et al., 2009). ...
Collective efficacy theory states that neighbourhood variation in crime can be attributed to social cohesion and informal social control. Despite a substantial body of work, the theory has been subject to little testing in Europe and few studies have compared different outcomes. The current study employed a cluster sampling design to study violent crime in a sample of 70 suburban housing estates built in the 1960s and 1970s throughout Finland. Police-recorded violent crime in public and private space and survey-based measures of neighbourhood violence were studied using register data on neighbourhood characteristics and the residents’ perceptions of social cohesion and perceived capacity for informal control. The results showed that, in a sample of Finnish suburban housing estates, collective efficacy was negatively associated with violence in private space and a survey-based measure of neighbourhood violence, while the association between collective efficacy and violence in public space was not significant. Neighbourhood disadvantage was directly associated with police-recorded violence in private surroundings but not violence in the public sphere.
... In contrast, neighborhood social disorder is characterized by a lack of order in social relations, including the presence of crime, disorderly behavior, drug problems, gang violence, or loitering in the street (Aneshensel & Sucoff, 1996;Ross, Mirowsky, & Pribesh, 2001;Skogan, 1990). Prior research has examined links between some forms of neighborhood social processes and parenting (Chung & Steinberg, 2006;Simons, Simons, Burt, Brody, & Cutrona, 2005); however, very little is known about whether the associations between neighborhood dynamics and parenting vary according to relationship status. This study focuses on mother's parenting because mothers are considerably more likely to have custody of children when parents live apart. ...
This study investigates associations between neighborhood social processes and parenting qualities among mothers of young children and tests variation according to relationship status. Data come from Year 3 of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (n = 3,535). Aim 1 is to examine associations between neighborhood collective efficacy and social disorder and parenting qualities (parenting stress, parental efficacy, harsh discipline, and neglect). Aim 2 is to test relationship status (married, cohabiting, or single) as a moderator of links between neighborhood social processes and parenting. Results showed significant associations in expected directions; collective efficacy was related to more positive parenting qualities, and social disorder had negative implications for parenting. Interactions by relationship status revealed that neighborhood social processes had stronger implications for single relative to married or cohabiting mothers. Discussion centers on the importance of identifying neighborhood risk and protective factors for parenting qualities among mothers with young children.
... Parental support is defined as behaviors that display warmth, nurturance, and compassion and has been universally adaptive across different racial and ethnic groups (Barber et al. 2005). Studies demonstrate parental support to be related to both psychological and behavioral outcomes (Bean et al. 2006;Hoeve et al. 2009;Roberts et al. 2000;Simons et al. 2016;Simons et al. 2005). Consistent findings have been reported for studies examining self-esteem, with parental support serving as a positive predictor of adolescent self-esteem. ...
Objectives
Issues around skin tone and colorism have generated much discussion in popular culture outlets and empirical research. This work has focused primarily on the continued significance of skin tone across the life course for women of color. Yet, few studies have examined the implications of skin tone on sexual health.
Methods
Using data from a longitudinal study of 397 African American young women, we examined a prospective model in which self-esteem was a psychological mediator through which skin tone influenced negative sexual behavior and sexual health outcomes. In addition, we investigated parental support and racial identity as moderators that act as protective factors to buffer the effects of an individual’s skin tone on self-esteem thus influencing sexual health outcomes.
Results
Results indicated that skin tone was linked to sexual behavior and negative sexual health outcomes indirectly through its association with self-esteem. Further, when parental support was high, a weaker link emerged between skin tone and self-esteem. Findings suggest high parental support may be advantageous for darker skin young women because it serves as a protective factor that buffers the impact of skin tone on self-esteem. Results, however, showed no evidence of moderation for racial identity.
Conclusions
Future research on African American young women should focus on the effects of skin tone alone or in combination with self-esteem and parental support given its link to sexual health.
... 20 Collective efficacy is associated with neighborhood poverty, delinquency, violence, and disadvantage. 12,[21][22][23][24][25][26] Specifically, increases in community collective efficacy are protective and positively influence mental health outcomes. Higher levels of collective efficacy are related to lower levels of depressive symptoms 27 and a higher likelihood of general and mental health wellness. ...
Objective
Community characteristics, such as perceived collective efficacy, a measure of community strength, can affect mental health outcomes following disasters. We examined the association of perceived collective efficacy with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and frequent mental distress (14 or more mentally unhealthy days in the past month) following exposure to the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons.
Methods
Participants were 1486 Florida Department of Health workers who completed anonymous questionnaires that were distributed electronically 9 months after the 2005 hurricane season. Participant ages ranged from 20 to 79 years (mean, 48; SD, 10.7), and the majority were female (79%), white (75%), and currently married (64%). Fifty percent had a BA/BS degree or higher.
Results
In 2 separate logistic regression models, each adjusted for individual sociodemographics, community socioeconomic characteristics, individual injury/damage, and community storm damage, lower perceived collective efficacy was significantly associated with a greater likelihood of having PTSD (OR, 0.93; 95% CI, 0.90-0.96), and lower collective efficacy was significantly associated with frequent mental distress (OR, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.92-0.96).
Conclusions
Programs enhancing community collective efficacy may be a significant part of prevention practices and possibly lead to a reduction in the rate of PTSD and persistent distress postdisaster. ( Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness . 2018;page 1 of 9).
... nos/as e as famílias sobre reconhecimento e gestão de emoções, estratégias de parentalidade "autoritativa" (e.g. Steinberg, 1990;Simons et al., 2005) e como proceder em situações concretas de "crise". Também prestámos informações relevantes para a tomada de decisões conscientes no domínio do percurso escolar (quer decisões micro e a curto-prazo como, p. ex., "o que dizer quando voltar para a escola amanhã" ou "como poderá justificar as faltas", quer decisões mais fundamentais com impacto de longo-prazo, como, p. ex., "se devo mudar o meu filho de curso ou de escola"). ...
O livro aborda em pormenor a implementação e avaliação do projeto “Um Cerco Educativo-Alternativo” (1-CEA). Este projeto utilizou a metodologia de trabalho educativo de rua (social street work), enquadrada no âmbito da prevenção desenvolvimental e comunitária em criminologia e ciências da educação, para intervir sobre o absentismo escolar e promover a interculturalidade na escola, trabalhando, sobretudo, com crianças e jovens ciganas/os. Este handbook foi concebido pela equipa do projeto “Um Cerco Educativo-Alternativo”, visando: sistematizar o conteúdo do projeto; relatar as suas principais experiências; e, divulgar as principais metodologias e resultados com vista à replicação do modelo em realidades similares.
O livro inaugura a coleção "Projetos e Práticas de Inovação Social" do Observatório das Comunidades Ciganas. A Coleção Projetos e Práticas de Inovação Social tem como objetivo dar a conhecer projetos que, pelas suas temáticas, características e resultados, possibilitem uma determinada mudança social em contexto e que, simultaneamente, sejam inspiradores de realidades que apresentem constrangimentos similares, potenciando uma maior humanização dos atores e dos contextos.
... Contudo, suporte para a tese da moderação do contexto, é encontrado algures (MOLNAR et al., 2006), provando-se que a coesão/integração social da vizinhança na adolescência média amortece o impacto de fatores de risco de outros 19. Análogo ao conceito de parentalidade "authoritative", mas com uma componente cultural (ANDERSON, 1999, cit. in MESSNER & ZIMMERMAN, 2012SIMONS et al., 2005;STEWART & SIMONS, 2006). ...
Este artigo realiza uma revisão teórica da contribuição dos fatores comunitários para as trajetórias de desenvolvimento antissocial e criminal. Procura esclarecer e organizar o que diz o discurso científico sobre as relações entre comunidade e trajetórias comportamentais. Para isso, apresenta, analisa e discute, por um lado, as perspetivas teóricas e, por outro, os estudos empíricos mais relevantes encontrados na disciplina da Criminologia Desenvolvimental. Antes disso, faz uma breve passagem pelas fundações teóricas do tema que precedem historicamente esta subdisciplina da Criminologia – que vai beber deles – para uma mais abrangente compreensão teórica das origens e jogos conceituais e empíricos que se observam no presente. Saltaremos para este “estado da arte” com um tiro de partida que se formula pelas seguintes perguntas – a que se procura dar resposta ao longo do artigo: quais os fatores comunitários que impactuam nas trajetórias antissociais/percursos de vida e qual o seu peso? Que interações tecem com outros sistemas de causação? Em que períodos da vida dos indivíduos (timing) surtem as comunidades a sua influência? A magnitude do impacto comunitário varia consoante o estágio desenvolvimental ou idade? ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
This article establishes a state-of-the-art review about the contribution of the community factors in the study of developmental trajectories of antisocial and criminal behavior. It aims to clarify and organize what the scientific discourse says about the relationships between community and behavioral trajectories. With this purpose, divided in two directions it presents, analyzes and discusses the most relevant: (1) theoretical perspectives and (2) empirical studies that can be found within the subject of Developmental Criminology. Before that, a brief passage through the theoretical foundations of this theme – historically speaking, they precede Developmental Criminology (DC) but DC actualizes them – towards a wider theoretical comprehension of the origins and conceptual and empirical games at stake in the present. We will jump towards this review with a starting shot built upon the following questions – to be answered along the article: Which community factors have an impact on antisocial development/life paths and how much do they matter? What interactions do they have with other systems of influences? At what periods in individual’s lives (timing) do communities make an impact? Does the weight of its influence vary across developmental stages or age?
... Perceived neighborhood collective efficacy regarding parenting might also influence parenting behavior; particularly given that collective efficacy, defined as social cohesion (i.e., norms of reciprocity, and trust in others) and control (i.e., willingness to intervene on behalf of the common good), may promote resilience in families and children (Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn, 2003;Putnam, 2001). In particular, collective efficacy has been shown to reduce risk of delinquency, violence and crime (Browning, 2002;Browning, Dietz, & Feinberg, 2004;Maimon, Browning, & Brooks-Gunn, 2010;Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997;Simons, Simons, Burt, Brody, & Cutrona, 2005), and it may even lower risk for child maltreatment (Andresen & Telleen, 1992;Armstrong, Birnie-Lefcovitch, & Ungar, 2005;Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn, 2003). Specifically, neighborhood cohesion and the quality of social relationships that exist between community members have been found to help build parenting support and functions, such as more positive parent-child interaction and supervision, and also to reduce stress, which is associated with maltreatment (Andresen & Telleen, 1992;Armstrong et al., 2005;Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn, 2003;Putnam, 2001;Sampson et al., 1997). ...
Social norms regarding corporal punishment (CP) may be the most important population-level risk factor for child physical abuse in the U.S. Little is known about the perceived social contexts, such as perceived norms and collective efficacy, that are linked with CP. In particular, there is a paucity of research exploring the direct and/or moderating roles of collective efficacy in reducing CP as a risk factor for child physical abuse. The current study examined the linkages between perceived neighborhood levels of both parenting collective efficacy and injunctive norms regarding CP use with maternal attitudes toward and use of CP. Data were utilized from a survey conducted with female primary caregivers (N = 436) enrolled in Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children clinics in the Greater New Orleans Area. Perceived collective efficacy was not significantly associated with attitudes toward CP, and had only a marginally significant positive association with CP use (χ² (2, N = 436) = 8.88, p = 0.06). Further, perceived injunctive norms (i.e., perceived higher levels of approval) of CP use by neighbors were positively associated with positive attitudes toward CP use (AOR: 6.43; 95% CI 4.00, 10.33) and greater frequency of CP use (AOR: 2.57; 95% CI 1.62, 4.09). There was evidence of effect modification by perceived collective-efficacy on the relation between injunctive norms of neighbors and frequency of CP use (p = 0.082). For those who reported high perceived collective efficacy, there was a significant association between positive perceived injunctive norms and frequency of CP use (AOR: 3.24; 95% CI 1.51, 6.95); this suggests that perceived collective efficacy does not buffer risk for CP use when parents perceive that neighbors approve of its use. Targeted efforts for larger communities to shift beliefs and attitudes regarding CP use may be valuable not only in shifting community norms supportive of CP but also in building supportive community networks that discourage parents from using CP and encourage them to practice non-harsh parenting strategies.
... Incidents of school crime and violence represent direct measures of safety that are related to numerous student outcomes (Hong & Espelage, 2012;Ozer & Weinstein, 2004). School disruptions may shape perceptions of safety and transmit signals to students about the level of social control in school (Hanson & Voight, 2014;Simons, Simons, Burt, Brody, & Cutrona, 2005). For the analyses, this study asks the following two questions: ...
Safety-seeking has fueled the growth of charter schools. Descriptive evidence suggests different possible factors underlying safety in charter schools. This study investigates characteristics mediating the relationship between safety and charter schools by linking five waves of the School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS: 2003–04; 2005–06; 2007–08; 2009–10; 2015–16) to Common Core Data. Analyses of 12,698 schools indicate that charter schools report fewer incidents of school crime and violence and school disruptions than public schools do. Additionally, small school size, school-based parent volunteering, and less use of disciplinary and student removal practices were the strongest mediators of the relationship between charter schools and safety. Future research is needed to understand the relative contribution of self-selection processes and school strategies to safety in charter schools.
... As such, Sampson et al. (1997) formulated the concept of "collective efficacy," proposing that neighborhoods with high levels of informal social control and social cohesion will be better equipped to achieve shared community values and restrict deviant behaviors. Studies have consistently found measures of informal control and social cohesion to be inversely related to both neighborhood crime rates (Armstrong, Katz, and Schnebly 2015;Bellair 1997;Elliott et al. 1996;Markowitz et al. 2001;Sampson et al. 1997) and individual-level deviance (Browning, Leventhal, and Brooks-Gunn 2005;Simons et al. 2005). Findings from Sampson and colleagues (1997) suggest that the relationship between neighborhood structure and violence is significantly mediated by collective efficacy. ...
Objectives
Explanations of community violence traditionally reflect a social disorganization perspective, suggesting that neighborhood characteristics affect crime via the intervening mechanism of informal social control. Drawing on Agnew’s Macro Strain Theory [MST], we argue that neighborhood characteristics 1) also affect macro-level crime for reasons related to aggregated strain and 2) condition the relationship between micro-level strains and individual violent offending.
Methods
Using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, we conduct a series of multilevel models examining both the macro- and multi-level relationship between neighborhood characteristics, strain and youth violence.
Findings
Results generally support our arguments, suggesting that neighborhood characteristics like concentrated disadvantage 1) remain associated with community violence even after adjusting for multiple measures of informal social control and 2) condition the association between micro-level strain and violent offending.
Conclusions
Strain processes, at both the macro and micro-level, play a critical role in the well-established empirical relationship between structural disadvantage and violence. In light of results, community crime control policies should address the ways in which structural disadvantage increases motivation, rather than focusing exclusively on the ways in which it weakens informal social control.
... The differences found in the current study compared to previous research linking parenting styles and perceptions of parental legitimacy could, at least in part, be explained by procedural justice theory (Lind & Tyler, 1988;Tyler, 1994). Previous literature has continually shown the link between authoritative parenting being the optimal parenting practice for adolescent compliance (Darling et al., 2007;Jackson, 2002;Simons et al., 2005;Tisak, 1986;Trinkner et al., 2012). Authoritative parenting style embodies characteristics of procedural justice (Jackson & Fondacaro, 1999), a precursor to the formation of perceptions of legitimacy (Tyler, 1994;Walters & Bolger, 2019). ...
This study examined whether parental legitimacy served as a mediator in the relation between parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, permissive) and adolescent engagement in four domain-specific rule-violating behaviors (RVB: relational aggression, assault, theft, substance use). A total of 708 middle school and high school students from the New Hampshire Youth Study were surveyed four times every six months for the current study. Using generalized structural equation modeling, results demonstrated that parental legitimacy was a mediator of authoritative parenting style, but was not a significant or consistent mediator for authoritarian and permissive parenting styles, with RVBs. Parental legitimacy fully mediated the relation between authoritative parenting and assault, theft, and relational aggression, but only partially mediated the relation with substance use. This finding suggests that parental legitimacy might be more important in certain domains of behavior than others. Moveover, this pattern mostly persisted when examining changes in RVB overtime and changes in parental legitimacy as a mediator. The implications of parental authority and why adolescents may engage in certain RVB over others, as well as how developmental factors are accounted for in legal socialization, are discussed.
... In addition to the structural characteristics of neighborhoods, the social-interactional processes within communities (Sampson, Morenoff and Gannon-Rowley 2002) also have implications that carry over to family-level processes (Elder et al. 1995;Simons et al. 2005;Maimon, Browning, and Brooks-Gunn 2010). Some neighborhoods are characterized by tightly knit networks of obligation and support among residents that could potentially compensate for the reduced supervision, monitoring, and disruptions in routine associated with single-parent families and parental instability (Browning, Leventhal, and Brooks-Gunn 2005). ...
Secondary exposure to violence in the community is a prevalent developmental risk with implications for youths’ short- and long-term socioemotional functioning. This study used longitudinal, multilevel data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods to consider how family structure, including parental instability, is associated with youths’ secondary exposure to violence across diverse neighborhood contexts. Results showed that both living in a stable single-parent household and experiencing parental instability were associated with greater secondary exposure to violence compared with living in a stable two-parent household. The associations between having a single parent or experiencing parental instability and secondary exposure to violence were especially strong in neighborhoods with high levels of crime and strong neighborhood ties.
Research has linked various constructs with a shared focus on the future to suicidal behavior. This study examined: (1) whether life expectancy and expectations for future health were associated with reduced odds of suicidal ideation and attempted suicide, and (2) whether the reducing effect of having high levels of future expectations on suicidal ideation was stronger among individuals with lower levels of depression. Study participants were youths from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), a multi-wave panel study of how individual, family, peer, and school factors contributes to youth developmental outcomes. Sequential logistic regression models on 14,644 youths (average age = 14.7 years; 51.3% female; 58.7% white) indicated that higher reported levels of life expectancy and expectations for future health were associated with reduced odds of engaging in suicidal ideation and attempted suicide, net of an array of well-established correlates of suicidal behavior. Depression moderated this relationship such that the association between future expectations and suicidal behavior was amplified among youths with lower levels of depression. The findings suggest that interventions that address suicidal thoughts and actions should promote positive thinking about the future.
Introduction
Positive parenting practices are known to be related to lower levels of youth offending. Questions remain as to the overlap between youth and parent perceptions of parenting practices, and the relationship of perception discrepancies with youth offending. This study examines the concordance of parenting behaviors reports, the relationship between parent and youth perceptions of parenting measures with youth offending, and whether discordant youth and parent reports are related to heterogeneity in youth offending.
Methods
Survey data from 818 high risk U.S. youth averaging 16 years old who participated in the Pathways to Desistance study and his or her parent form the basis of this analysis.
Results and conclusions
Results demonstrate youth and parent reports of parental knowledge and parental monitoring are correlated, yet independent predictors of youth offending variety scores. Youth and parent reports about parenting measures demonstrate youth offending is highest when youth perceive parents as uninvolved, and lowest when youth estimates of parental knowledge and monitoring are higher than parent estimates. Parenting matters for high-risk youth, especially in reducing the likelihood of property offending. Using multiple perspectives to assess parenting practices is important in studying these dyadic relationships.
A reliance on informal supports and neighborhood has its history within the African American community as a useful strategy for building and maintaining overall resilience. It’s known that a history of systemic oppression gave rise to distinct cultural barriers to social services and resources, leading to a reliance on community to help foster success in the African American community. Thus, the notion of neighborhood collective efficacy is assumed to be a valuable protective process to explore for African American youth. The current exploratory study utilizes multilevel growth curve modeling to examine the relationship between NCE and aspects of resilience over time. Findings reveal a significant, positive relationship as well as important implications for culturally responsive study and practice.
There is a well-established relationship between child maltreatment and delinquency, indicating that maltreated youth are at a heightened risk for later delinquency. However, the literature is unclear as to why some maltreated youth proceed to engage in delinquent behaviors, whereas others do not. The present study examined whether parental or family factors moderated the relation between a history of maltreatment and engagement in delinquent behavior during adolescence. Parental and family moderators included parental monitoring, parental emotional distress (depression and everyday stressors), parent–child relationship quality, family community and religious disengagement, poverty, and negative life events. This study utilized data on 1,149 children from the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN), a collaborative effort across research sites that collected data regarding the risk factors and consequences of child maltreatment. For the purposes of this study, we utilized adolescent self-reports of delinquency, caregiver reports of parental and family variables, and administrative data on child maltreatment. Community and religious disengagement was the only variable that moderated the relation between maltreatment and delinquency. The effects of community and religious disengagement varied by maltreatment group such that greater community and religious disengagement was related to increased delinquent involvement for those in the no maltreatment, childhood-only maltreatment, and persistent maltreatment groups. Child maltreatment was not a significant predictor of delinquency over and above the effect of parenting and family variables that were measured during adolescence. Findings point to the importance of considering proximal parenting and family factors in understanding the maltreatment–delinquency relationship.
Objectives
To examine the extent to which adults’ and youths’ perceptions of collective efficacy align, the shared and unique correlates of adults’ and youths’ perceptions, and the effects of adults’ and youths’ perceptions on youths’ violence.
Method
Descriptive analysis, hierarchical linear modeling, and spatial analysis analyze 1,636 youths from the 2008 Boston Youth Survey and 1,677 adults distributed across 85 neighborhoods from the 2008 Boston Neighborhood Study.
Results
Descriptive analysis indicates that Boston adults’ and youths’ perceptions are largely divergent. Spatial analysis indicates that there is not clustering of either adults’ or youths’ perceptions across Boston neighborhoods. Multilevel models indicate that adults’ and youths’ perceptions exhibit divergent etiology: Adults’ perceptions align closely with neighborhood collective efficacy and with their own neighborhood perceptions, while youths’ perceptions are largely a function of individual differences (race and age) and sociobehavioral factors (social support and educational expectations). Youths’ perceptions of collective efficacy, rather than aggregated adults’ perceptions of collective efficacy, are inversely associated with youths’ violence.
Conclusions
Adults’ and youths’ perceptions of collective efficacy represent distinct constructs. Research should focus on the divergent processes through which adults’ and youths’ perceptions are generated and the differential effects of adults’ and youths’ perceptions on youths’ behaviors.
In this chapter, we demonstrate how the role of the family, specifically parents/guardians, siblings, cohesion, and interactions affect the likelihood of being bullied. Several aspects of the home environment may be particularly relevant for victims of school bullying, as they may promote resilience in children going through this stressful experience. We also denote how bullied youth who have strong and intimate bonds or relationships with their parents/guardians might have more favorable psychosocial outcomes than would otherwise be the case. We present how youth from families with a culture of violence or maltreatment may feel powerless, as they are unable to protect themselves from harm and bullies. These youth are also likely to develop poor social skills, making them targets of bullying victimization and social exclusion.
This paper examines the patterns of harmful weapon behavior and the protective influence of perceived collective efficacy on harmful weapon behavior among a cross-national sample of youth detainees in Toronto and Philadelphia. Despite different firearms policies, detained youth in both cities reveal considerable knowledge of where to get a gun. Multivariate analyses reveal that participating in gang fights, non-violent delinquency, and neighborhood gun markets are significantly related to harmful gun behavior in both cities. Only one collective efficacy subscale, perceived social cohesion, exerted a protective influence on harmful gun behavior among youth in both cities. These results suggest that in the absence of “strong ties,” reflected in family and residential stability, there may be added value in the “weak ties” provided by the community, making social cohesion an important protective characteristic for this high-risk group of youthful detainees. The significance of the findings, limitations, and potential policy implications are discussed.
El objetivo general del estudio es determinar cuáles son los principales factores que convierten a una persona en un tipo de criminal. Para esto, nos enfocamos en las Teorías de Aprendizaje Social y Desorganización Social, contrastándolas entre sí para determinar cuál teoría es la más relevante. Un segundo objetivo es determinar cómo se relaciona el crimen y el género dentro de estas dos teorías, es decir, si los efectos encontrados son distintos para hombres y mujeres. Los resultados obtenidos indican que la desorganización social resta importancia al aprendizaje social en la probabilidad de cometer delitos contra el patrimonio; sin embargo, ambas teorías tienen efecto sobre la probabilidad de cometer un delito contra la libertad. Asimismo, se encuentra que las mujeres no cometen los mismos delitos que los hombres y, además, no son afectadas por los mismos factores.
Juvenile delinquency is influenced by reciprocal relationships between micro-level and macro-level factors. The risk, need, and responsivity (RNR) model, and collective efficacy theory are two commonly used frameworks in juvenile justice research. This study builds on previous research by testing indicators of both the RNR model and collective efficacy theory as predictors of self-reported juvenile delinquency utilizing data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. Taken as a whole, our findings suggest that individual-level factors are strong predictors of self-reported juvenile delinquency, whereas the relationship between collective efficacy and juvenile delinquency is limited. This finding emphasizes the importance of addressing individual needs when implementing community-level interventions aimed at preventing delinquency. Failure to do so may result in merely displacing juvenile delinquency as opposed to helping youth desist from delinquent behaviors.
For decades, criminological theories have emphasized the importance of strong parent‐child relationships in preventing children’s delinquent behaviors (e.g., Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990). In particular, Thornberry’s (1996) interactional theory has catalyzed studies of the critical importance of reciprocal relationships between parents and children. However, though previous studies have examined reciprocal relationships, they typically do not assess changes in those relationships over time (Wiloughby & Hamza, 2011). The purpose of this study is to evaluate how reciprocal relationships vary among parenting styles and how this variance accounts for children’s delinquency. In particular, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 Cohort study, the present study examines how the authoritative parenting style and different parent’s and child’s sexes affect the reciprocal parent‐child relationship. It discovers a significant correlation between authoritative parenting styles and a reduction in child delinquency and observes how a parent’s sex influences this dynamic.
Ethnic–racial socialization is employed by ethnic minority parents to support their children’s psychosocial adjustment. These socialization messages may be associated differently with psychosocial adjustment for Black youth according to ethnicity and qualities of the neighborhood context. This research examined whether associations between ethnic–racial socialization messages and psychosocial adjustment vary by ethnicity and perceived neighborhood quality in a nationally representative sample of Black adolescents who participated in the National Survey of American Life Adolescent supplement study. The effects of promotion of mistrust messages varied by ethnicity, and the effects of egalitarianism messages varied depending on perceived neighborhood quality. These findings help clarify prior research which has yielded equivocal results for the effects of these messages for Black youth’s psychosocial adjustment.
The present research investigated influences of multiple socialization agents on social cognitive biases that may explain youths' anti-social behavior. It was predicted that parenting, teachers' leadership, and friends' delinquency would influence social cognitive biases directly, whereas community residents' collective efficacy would be an antecedent of parenting and teachers' leadership. Primary and junior high school students and their parents (N=1,404 pairs) completed a questionnaire. Structural equation modeling revealed that collective efficacy suppressed social cognitive biases, mediated by parenting and teachers' leadership. Perceived parenting, teachers' leadership, and friends' delinquency influenced social cognitive biases. Different mechanisms by which community residents may influence parents and teachers were implied in that informal social control promoted parenting, whereas social cohesion and trust promoted maintenance functions of teachers.
The question of what context -private or public - is more vulnerable to cyberbullying is the issue of this study. Research into cyberbullying has recently begun to address the characteristics of cyberbullying in public versus private media contexts, but has yet to determine which is more vulnerable to the phenomenon.
The current study included 5,225 elementary and middle school students who completed a questionnaire regarding cyberbullying victimization in their WhatsApp classmates‘ group and private discourse. Cyberbullying victimization in WhatsApp classmates’ discourse was assessed through four types of cyberbullying, i.e., verbal bullying, exclusion, visual bullying, and participation avoidance due to fear of offensive responses. Grade level and gender differences were also examined. Results indicated that for all grade levels, private context is more vulnerable to WhatsApp cyberbullying compared to public, across three cyberbullying types, i.e., verbal bullying, exclusion, and visual bullying, while the opposite was found for avoidance. No gender differences were found. Implications are discussed.
Juvenile delinquency has a negative effect on victims, communities and the individual who commits a delinquent act. However, exposure to the juvenile justice system can be a traumatic event that results in further delinquency—highlighting a need to develop community-based interventions to prevent delinquency. Collective efficacy theory is a commonly used framework to prevent juvenile delinquency. Although community-level interventions have been developed based on collective efficacy, research suggests that they are limited in their effectiveness. This may be due to limitations in our conceptualisation of collective efficacy, and our limited understanding of how perceptions of collective efficacy differ between youths and parents. The present study utilises data from the Fragile Families Child Wellbeing Study to test parent and youth perceptions of collective efficacy as predictors of self-reported juvenile delinquency. The results indicate that—although collective efficacy is typically associated with lower levels of juvenile delinquency in neighbourhoods—neither parents’ nor youths’ perceptions of collective efficacy are strong predictors of self-reported juvenile delinquency. The findings suggest that focusing on youth, family and neighbourhood characteristics may maximise the effectiveness of interventions aimed at preventing juvenile delinquency.
The Peacebuilding Compared project deployed South Asian data to conclude that war tends to cascade across space and time to further war, crime to further crime, war to crime, and crime to war. This article is an analytic sketch of crime as a cascade phenomenon. Examining crime through a cascade lens helps us to imagine how to more effectively cascade crime prevention. Like crime, crime prevention often cascades. Braithwaite and D’Costa (2018) show how peacemaking can cascade non-violence, how it cascades non-violent social movement politics, and vice versa. Seeing crime through the cascade lens opens up fertile ways of imagining macrocriminology. Self-efficacy and collective efficacy are hypothesised as catalysts of crime prevention cascades in such a macrocriminology. Australian successes with gun control and drunk driving point to the importance of explicitly connecting evidence-based microcriminology to a macrocriminology of cultural transformation. More structurally, building collective efficacy in families, schools and primary work groups may cascade collective efficacy into neighbourhoods and vice versa. The microcriminology of hot-spot policing might be elaborated into a macrocriminology of inkspots of collective efficacy that cascade and connect up.
Youth-adult partnerships in disadvantaged neighborhoods offer a promising approach for preventing community problems such as violence. While they differ slightly from traditional intergenerational programs that involve youth with older adults, they foster similar goals, including promoting relationships, mutual support, and community engagement. A social process called collective efficacy is developed when youth and adults trust one another and work together to solve problems. Research shows that collective efficacy is associated with lower levels of community crime and violence. This paper describes a community-based intervention for mobilizing and engaging residents to prevent violence by a facilitating youth-adult partnership to foster collective efficacy, including trusting relationships and the competencies needed to address neighborhood problems. This paper begins with a review of youth-adult partnerships and their successful characteristics, followed by how these partnerships influence the social processes important for developing collective efficacy and preventing violence. The characteristics of successful youth-adult partnerships are illustrated throughout the discussion of the community-based intervention. This paper demonstrates how to translate prior research on youth-adult partnerships and collective efficacy into actionable strategies that community practitioners and researchers can use to prevent community violence.
A large body of work has examined the factors contributing to low self-control among adolescents, with a predominant focus on individual and family characteristics. More recently, a small body of research has examined whether neighborhood characteristics influence self-control, with many finding null effects. We extend this research by considering whether neighborhood characteristics have a moderating influence rather than a direct effect. We examine several neighborhood characteristics, including collective efficacy, delinquency rate, and moral cynicism, as well as distinctive components of parenting effectiveness, including warmth, lack of hostility, and supervision. We find that neighborhoods do influence levels of self-control among juveniles, but primarily by helping or hindering the efforts of effective parents to instill self-control in their children.
Ülkemizde kalkınma ve gelişme olgusu genel olarak alt yapı olanaklarının sağlanması ve ekonomik olarak ülke genelinde kişi başına düşen ulusal gelirin artmasıyla ölçülmektedir. Ancak, bölgesel farklılıkların başat olduğu ülkemizde, yaşayan nüfusun (çocuk, genç, kadın, erkek ve yaşlı) ne tür sorunları olduğu ve ne tür sorunlar, tehlikelerle yüz yüze kaldığı ya da kalabileceği konusunda çok fazla çalışma yapılmamaktadır. Özellikle bölgesel farklılıkların saptanması ve bu farklılıkların olumluya dönüştürülmesi gereklidir.
Son yıllarda dünyada bölgesel riskler konusunda yapılan çalışmalar artmış olup ülkemizde riskle ilgili gerçekleştirilen çalışmalar genel olarak ekolojik sorunları saptamak amacıyla yapılmıştır. Ancak, sosyal risk konusunda yapılan çalışmalar bir elin parmaklarından daha azdır.
Bu çalışmada Mardin’in sosyal tarihi ve yakın dönem sosyo-ekonomik yapısı göz önüne alınarak göç, geriye göç, yoksulluk, terör ve şiddet değişkenlerinden hareketle sorunların saptanması ve bu sorunlardan riskli alanların tespit edilmesi amaçlanmaktadır. Bu belirlenimin ardından elde edilen sosyolojik verilerden hareketle, karar alıcılara yönelik öneriler geliştirilmeye çalışılmıştır.
The aim of the current study is to identify protective factors that buffer the effect of caregiver mental illness on adolescent delinquency. Specifically, we test whether (a) caregiver mental illness will be associated with adolescent’s delinquent behavior; (b) community affiliations will moderate the relationship between caregiver mental illness and adolescent’s delinquent behavior; (c) teacher support will moderate the relationship between caregiver mental illness and adolescent’s delinquent behavior, and (d) religious affiliation will moderate the relationship between caregiver mental illness and adolescent delinquent behavior. The study sample consisted of 509 African American adolescents in Chicago’s Southside, 12 to 17 years of age, who reported delinquent behaviors. Analyses for the study included descriptive statistics, bivariate correlations, and hierarchical multivariate regression. The study found a positive association between caregiver mental illness and adolescents’ delinquent behavior. Community affiliation was also positively associated, while teacher support was negatively associated with delinquent behaviors. The association between caregiver’s mental illness and adolescent delinquency was buffered by teacher support. Teacher support is an important protective factor that is impactful for adolescents in low-resourced and dangerous communities.
When students feel their teachers or school rules are unfair, support from adults at school mitigates the deleterious impact of perceived injustice on school violence. We test whether there is racial variation in this strain-coping mechanism–antisocial behavior relationship. We document a relationship between perceived school fairness and adult support on fighting among racial minorities but not White students. Among White students, stronger perceptions of school fairness are associated with reduced probabilities of fighting regardless of social support. Among racial minorities, social support buffers the harmful impact of perceived injustice on fighting. Findings show that fair treatment is especially important in the context of low support and support is especially important in the context of unjust treatment for racial minorities.
To evaluate a model of social contextual influences on risk for adolescent pregnancy, 368 target adolescents (52% female, 48% male) and their mothers, fathers, and closest age siblings were assessed 6 times over a 7-year period beginning when the target adolescents were in 7th grade. Two pathways were found to increase risk for involvement in a pregnancy by late adolescence. Middle adolescent risk-taking behavior mediated the influence of early adolescent parental warmth-involvement and deviant-peer affiliations on involvement in a pregnancy by 12th grade. Also, early adolescent academic competence mediated the relationship between parental warmth-involvement and involvement in a pregnancy by 12th grade. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.
We examine whether neighborhood racial composition or poverty is the more important predictor of premarital adolescent childbearing among metropolitan-area blacks, and how family socioeconomic status moderates these neighborhood influences. We analyze data from a special release of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics that appends census tract information to the individual records of 940 metropolitan black women. Using cluster analysis, we create neighborhood types that reflect the racial and economic composition of neighborhoods where metropolitan blacks live. Compared with living in a racially mixed neighborhood, living in a highly segregated neighborhood is associated with a 50-percent increase in the rate of a premarital first birth, regardless of neighborhood socioeconomic status. Living in a white middle-class neighborhood is associated with lower rates of a premarital first birth for affluent black teens, but has no effect on their less affluent black peers. These findings support the hypothesis that neighborhood racial composition directly influences adolescent childbearing by sealing off participation in mainstream social and economic arenas.
This article uses hierarchical linear modeling with a sample of African American children and their primary caregivers to examine the association between various community factors and child conduct problems. The analysis revealed a rather strong inverse association between level of collective socialization and conduct problems. This relationship held after controlling for a variety of individual-level variables relating to family, peers, and school. Two other community-level variables, prevalence of crime and concentrated disadvantage, were not significantly related to conduct problems. Overall, the results suggest that successful childrearing is a community enterprise. It appears that communities significantly reduce their risk for child conduct problems to the extent that adults know the children, parents, and teachers in their area, and they are inclined to act upon these social ties either by reprimanding children who are misbehaving or by notifying the proper authorities.
Several empirical studies have attempted to estimate the effect of low self-control on criminal and "analogous" behaviors. Most of these studies have shown that low self- control is an important feature of the cause(s) of crime. Although research is begin- ning to emerge that targets more specifically the "roots" of self-control via parental socialization (the most salient factor in the development of self-control according to Hirschi and Gottfredson), researchers have yet to explore the degree to which the structural characteristics of communities may influence patterns of parental social- ization and, in turn, individual levels of self-control. To address this question, the authors employ longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to examine community-level influences on parental socialization and self- control. The results indicate (1) self-control was predicted both cross-sectionally and longitudinally by both parental socialization and adverse neighborhood conditions, (2) the total effect of adverse neighborhood conditions on children's levels of self- control was just as strong as the total effect for indicators of parental socialization, and (3) important race differences did emerge, particularly with regard to the inter- relationships between our neighborhood-level measures and parental socialization.
1 Introduction.- 2 The Demographic Distribution of Delinquency and ADM Problems.- 3 Prevalence and General Offending/Use Patterns: The Joint Occurrence of Delinquent Behavior and ADM Problems.- 4 Age, Period, and Cohort Effects.- 5 Developmental Patterns.- 6 The Etiology of Delinquency and ADM Problems.- 7 Prediction of Delinquent and ADM Behavior from Other Delinquent and ADM Behavior.- 8 Summary and Implications.- References.- Appendix A Frequency of Alcohol Use.- Appendix B Mental Health Measures.- Appendix C Prevalence and Offending/Use Rates for Multiple Problem Types.- Appendix D Annual Transition Matrices for Problem Behavior Types.- Author Index.
One of the most noteworthy features of sibling relationships is their marked diversity. Striking differences in sibling relationships exist across cultures. Similarly, considerable differences exist within any one culture or subculture. Some sibling relationships are egalitarian, similar in some respects to those between friends. Others are asymmetrical, requiring one child to be responsible for the other. Sibling relationships vary not only in the distribution of power and responsibility, but also in affective quality. Relationships can be close or distant, harmonious or conflicted, cooperative or competitive.
"The Truly Disadvantagedshould spur critical thinking in many quarters about the causes and possible remedies for inner city poverty. As policy makers grapple with the problems of an enlarged underclass they—as well as community leaders and all concerned Americans of all races—would be advised to examine Mr. Wilson's incisive analysis."—Robert Greenstein,New York Times Book Review "'Must reading' for civil-rights leaders, leaders of advocacy organizations for the poor, and for elected officials in our major urban centers."—Bernard C. Watson,Journal of Negro Education "Required reading for anyone, presidential candidate or private citizen, who really wants to address the growing plight of the black urban underclass."—David J. Garrow,Washington Post Book World Selected by the editors of theNew York Times Book Reviewas one of the sixteen best books of 1987. Winner of the 1988 C. Wright Mills Award of the Society for the Study of Social Problems.
This explanation of crime and deviance over the life course is based on the re-analysis of a classic set of data: Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck's mid-century study of 500 delinquents and 500 non-delinquents from childhood to adulthood. More than five years ago, Robert Sampson and John Laub dusted off 60 cartons of the Gluecks' data that had been stored in the basement of the Harvard Law School and undertook a lengthy process of recoding, computerizing, and reanalyzing it. On the basis of their findings, Sampson and Laub developed a theory of informal social control over the life course which integrates three ideas. First, social bonds to family and school inhibit delinquency in childhood and adolescence. Second, there is continuity in antisocial and deviant behaviour from childhood through adulthood across various dimensions, such as crime, alcohol abuse, divorce and unemployment. And finally, despite these continuities, attachment to the labour force and cohesive marriage sharply mitigate criminal activities. Sampson and Laub thus acknowledge the importance of childhood behaviours and individual differences, but reject the implication that adult social factors have little relevance. They seek to account for both stability and change in crime and deviance throughout the life course. "Crime in the making" challenges several major ideas found in contemporary theory and aims to provide an important new foundation for rethinking criminal justice policy.
We propose a theoretical framework on the structural sources and spatially embedded nature of three mechanisms that produce collective efficacy for children. Using survey data collected in 1995 from 8,782 Chicago residents, we examine variations in intergenerational closure, reciprocal local exchange, and shared expectations for informal social control across 342 neighborhoods. Adjusting for respondents' attributes, we assess the effects of neighborhood characteristics measured in the 1990 census and the role of spatial interdependence. The results show that residential stability and concentrated affluence, more so than poverty and racial/ethnic composition, predict intergenerational closure and reciprocal exchange. Concentrated disadvantage, by contrast, is associated with sharply lower expectations for shared child control. The importance of spatial dynamics in generating collective efficacy for children is highlighted-proximity to areas high in closure, exchange, and control bestows an advantage above and beyond the structural characteristics of a given neighborhood. Moreover, spatial advantages are much more likely to accrue to white neighborhoods than to black neighborhoods.
This study examines the independent and joint contributions of three core dimensions of authoritative parenting - acceptance-involvement, strictness-supervision, and psychological autonomy granting - to adolescent adjustment. A sample of 8,700 14- to 18-year-olds completed questionnaires that included indices of authoritative parenting and a set of instruments assessing different aspects of adjustment. Behavior problems were related more strongly to behavioral control than to psychological autonomy granting. Psychosocial development and internal distress were more strongly associated with both psychological autonomy granting and acceptance-involvement than with behavioral control. Academic competence demonstrated significant relations with all three parenting variables. Curvilinear and interactive relations between parenting practices and adolescent adjustment were observed, but the specific pattern varied as a function of outcome assessed.
To understand the way children develop, Bronfenbrenner believes that it is necessary to observe their behavior in natural settings, while they are interacting with familiar adults over prolonged periods of time. His book offers an important blueprint for constructing a new and ecologically valid psychology of development.
A meta-analysis was performed of concurrent and longitudinal studies on the relation of family factors to juvenile conduct problems and delinquency. Analyses of longitudinal data show that socialization variables, such as lack of parental supervision, parental rejection, and parent-child involvement, are among the most powerful predictors of juvenile conduct problems and delinquency. Medium-strength predictors include background variables such as parents' marital relations and parental criminality. Weaker predictors are lack of parental discipline, parental health, and parental absence. The effect of these factors seems to be about the same for boys and for girls. Analyses of concurrent studies comparing delinquents with nondelinquents, and aggressive children with nonaggressive children, largely parallel these findings. Data from concurrent normal samples, however, show less importance for parental child socialization practices and relatively more importance for the child's rejection of the parent and the parent's rejection of the child. A small proportion of families produces a disproportionate number of delinquents. The presence of one child with delinquency, aggression, or covert conduct problems increases the probability that other children in the family will exhibit those behaviors. Deficiencies in parenting skills are associated with the seriousness of the child's delinquency. Treatment studies demonstrate that systematic changes in parenting behaviors can lessen the frequency of a child's conduct problems and that of siblings and, to a lesser extent, reduce involvement in delinquent activities.
■ Abstract This paper assesses and synthesizes the cumulative results of a new "neighborhood-effects" literature that examines social processes related to problem behaviors and health-related outcomes. Our review identified over 40 relevant studies published in peer-reviewed journals from the mid-1990s to 2001, the take-off point for an increasing level of interest in neighborhood effects. Moving beyond traditional char- acteristics such as concentrated poverty, we evaluate the salience of social-interactional and institutional mechanisms hypothesized to account for neighborhood-level varia- tions in a variety of phenomena (e.g., delinquency, violence, depression, high-risk behavior), especially among adolescents. We highlight neighborhood ties, social con- trol, mutual trust, institutional resources, disorder, and routine activity patterns. We also discuss a set of thorny methodological problems that plague the study of neigh- borhood effects, with special attention to selection bias. We conclude with promising strategies and directions for future research, including experimental designs, taking spatial and temporal dynamics seriously, systematic observational approaches, and benchmark data on neighborhood social processes.
Latent trait and life-course theories provide contrasting interpretations of the well-established finding that childhood antisocial behavior often precedes adolescent conduct problems and adult crime. Longitudinal data from 179 boys and their parents were used to test hypotheses derived from the two theoretical perspectives. The findings largely supported the life-course view. Oppositional behavior during late childhood predicted reductions in quality of parenting and school commitment and increased affiliation with deviant peers. These changes, in turn, predicted conduct problems during early adolescence. Although there was a moderately strong bivariate correlation between childhood antisocial behavior and adolescent conduct problems, there was no longer an association between these constructs when the effects of parenting, school, and peers were taken into account. Further, there was evidence that improved parenting, increased school commitment, or reduced affiliation with deviant peers lowered the probability that boys who were oppositional during childhood would graduate to delinquency and drug use during adolescence. Together, these findings suggest that the correlation between childhood and adolescent deviant behavior reflects a developmental process rather than a latent antisocial trait.
Multilevel data are used to assess how three interrelated contexts-family, peer group, and neighborhood-influence the social functioning of urban African-American adolescent youth, a group believed to be especially "at-risk" due to high rates of exposure to contextual disadvantage and its associated ills. The analysis is designed to test the various pathways that neighborhoods influence, both directly and indirectly (via their impact on families and peers), two adolescent outcomes-prosocial competency and problem behavior. Neighborhood effects are relatively modest, operate indirectly via their effect on parenting and peer groups, and are transmitted through neighborhood social organization (i.e., collective efficacy), rather than neighborhood structure. Parental monitoring and peer quality are higher in neighborhoods with greater collective efficacy, which also moderates the effect of parental monitoring on both youth outcomes.
Renowned American sociologist William Julius Wilson takes a look at the social transformation of inner city ghettos, offering a sharp evaluation of the convergence of race and poverty. Rejecting both conservative and liberal interpretations of life in the inner city, Wilson offers essential information and a number of solutions to policymakers. The Truly Disadvantaged is a wide-ranging examination, looking at the relationship between race, employment, and education from the 1950s onwards, with surprising and provocative findings. This second edition also includes a new afterword from Wilson himself that brings the book up to date and offers fresh insight into its findings. “ The Truly Disadvantaged should spur critical thinking in many quarters about the causes and possible remedies for inner city poverty. As policymakers grapple with the problems of an enlarged underclass they—as well as community leaders and all concerned Americans of all races—would be advised to examine Mr. Wilson's incisive analysis.”—Robert Greenstein, New York Times Book Review
Modern theories of child development say that, to understand aggressive behavior, we must look within the child. This book says otherwise: to change aggressive behavior, we must change the environment in which the child lives. This book lays out empirically proven approaches to reducing the occurrence and severity of antisocial behavior, beginning in the earliest years of childhood. Written for an audience of applied researchers, clinical practitioners, community activists, and policy makers, this edited volume summarizes ongoing work at the Oregon Social Learning Center. Using coercion theory as an organizing framework, the book distills more than 30 years of thinking and research at the center. Antisocial behavior is seen as progressing from dysfunctional parent-toddler interactions to similar interactions with teachers, peers, and others in the child's environment. The contributors make a powerful argument for an approach that pinpoints the antecedents of antisocial behavior all the way from toddlerhood through adolescence. This book will be of interest to anyone concerned about the quantifiable losses associated with behaviors such as violence and crime, incarceration, vocational failure, substance abuse, the use of emergency services, and irresponsible sexual conduct. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Latent trait and life-course theories provide contrasting interpretations of the well-established finding that childhood antisocial behavior often precedes adolescent conduct problems and adult crime. Longitudinal data from 179 boys and their parents were used to test hypotheses derived from the two theoretical perspectives. The findings largely supported the life-course view. Oppositional behavior during late childhood predicted reductions in quality of parenting and school commitment and increased affiliation with deviant peers. These changes, in turn, predicted conduct problems during early adolescence. Although there was a moderately strong bivariate correlation between childhood antisocial behavior and adolescent conduct problems, there was no longer an association between these constructs when the effects of parenting, school, and peers were taken into account. Further, there was evidence that improved parenting, increased school commitment, or reduced affiliation with deviant peers lowered the probability that boys who were oppositional during childhood would graduate to delinquency and drug use during adolescence. Together, these findings suggest that the correlation between childhood and adolescent deviant behavior reflects a developmental process rather than a latent antisocial trait.
Self-control theory has received extensive empirical attention in the past decade, but most studies have not tested its arguments about the effects of parenting on self-control and delinquency. Using data collected from a sample of urban high school students, this study addresses this void by examining two parenting-related hypotheses derived from the theory. For one of the hypotheses, the results with self-control theory are contrasted with those obtained with Baumrind's theory of authoritative parenting, a theory that also is concerned with the link between parenting and self-control. Results generally support self-control theory's two hypotheses, but also point to empirical limitations of the theory.
The systemic crime model predicts that informal surveillance of space reduces street crime. Conversely, community decline theory posits that street crime reduces informal surveillance by increasing residents' perception of risk and fear. Moreover, functions of crime theory suggests that some types of crime may increase surveillance. Using data for 100 urban neighborhoods, the analysis examines these predictions and disentangles reciprocal effects. Baseline recursive equations indicate that informal surveillance is inversely associated with robbery/stranger assault, and that robbery/stranger assault is inversely associated with informal surveillance. In contrast, burglary rates are not affected by informal surveillance, but burglary has a positive effect on surveillance when robbery/stranger assault is controlled. Simultaneous equations indicate that robbery/stranger assault has a moderately strong inverse effect on informal surveillance, and that it is mediated by residents' perceptions of risk. When risk perception is controlled, informal surveillance has an inverse effect on robbery/stranger assault. The latter analysis also indicates that burglary increases surveillance, suggesting that some types of crime serve positive functions. The results, therefore, lend support to systemic, community decline, and functions of crime theory, and they suggest that the relationship between informal surveillance and crime is complex. Implications for community crime research are discussed.
Recently, the concept of “collective efficacy” has been advanced to understand how communities exert control and provide support to reduce crime. In a similar way, we use the concept of “parental efficacy” to highlight the crime reducing effects associated with parents who support and control their youth. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), we examine the inter-relationship between parental controls and supports and their joint influence on youthful misbehavior. The results show that (1) support and control are intertwined, and (2) that parental efficacy exerts substantive effects on adolescent delinquency for the sample as a whole and across varying age groups.
This paper assesses and synthesizes the cumulative results of a new "neighborhood-effects" literature that examines social processes related to problem behaviors and health-related outcomes. Our review identified over 40 relevant studies published in peer-reviewed journals from the mid-1990s to 2001, the take-off point for an increasing level of interest in neighborhood effects. Moving beyond traditional char-acteristics such as concentrated poverty, we evaluate the salience of social-interactional and institutional mechanisms hypothesized to account for neighborhood-level varia-tions in a variety of phenomena (e.g., delinquency, violence, depression, high-risk behavior), especially among adolescents. We highlight neighborhood ties, social con-trol, mutual trust, institutional resources, disorder, and routine activity patterns. We also discuss a set of thorny methodological problems that plague the study of neigh-borhood effects, with special attention to selection bias. We conclude with promising strategies and directions for future research, including experimental designs, taking spatial and temporal dynamics seriously, systematic observational approaches, and benchmark data on neighborhood social processes.
Theories of delinquency posit two opposing views on the social interactions of deviant individuals. Social control theory assumes that deviants have poor relationships with others. Cultural deviance theory assumes that deviant individuals are similar to nondeviants and have strong ties with members of their friendship networks. These theories have not been empirically tested for male and female users of illicit drugs. Descriptive and multivariate analyses are reported here for young adult men and women aged 28 to 29, who were asked about their same-sex and opposite-sex friends in general and three specific close friends. Few differences were found in the characteristics of friendship networks of illicit drug users and nonusers. Where differences were observed. the frequent users tended to have more intimate friendships than other young adults, which supports the cultural deviance perspective. Structural equation models predicting two latent components of intimacy, confiding and interacting, with the three closest friends and same-sex and opposite-sex friends indicate that, controlling for other determinants of intimacy with friends, illicit drug use retains a unique effect and predicts substantially higher levels of intimacy among males. The strong social ties of adult drug-using males will make it more difficult to develop effective intervention strategies targeted toward individual users.
Hirschi and Gottfredson (1983; Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990) have argued that the age distribution of crime cannot be explained by any known variables. and they point specifically to the failure of sociological theories to explain this phenomenon. This paper examines a quintessentially sociological theory of crime—differential association—and evaluates its ability to explain the age distribution of crime. Analysis of data from the National Youth Survey on persons aged 11–21 reveals that peer relations (exposure to delinquent peers, time spent with peers, loyalty to peers) change dramatically over this age span, following much the same pattern as crime itself When measures of peer influence are controlled, the effects of age on self-reported delinquency are largely rendered insignificant. Additional analyses show that delinquent friends tend to be “sticky” friends (once acquired, they are not quickly lost) and that Sutherland's arguments concerning the duration and priority of delinquent associations are only partially correct.
General and developmental theories take very different approaches to the study of crime. General theories, like Gottfredson and Hirschi's recent theory of self-control, assume that crime can be explained with reference to a single or very limited set of explanatory factors. In addition, some general theories, like Gottfredson and Hirschi's, adopt a very static approach to causality. They presume that prior offending has no causal effect on current offending once time-stable criminal propensity is controlled, and they assume that the relationship between changes in life events and changes in offending are spurious. Recent developmental theories, like those proposed by Moffitt and Patterson, stand in stark contrast to Gottfredson and Hirschi's theory. These developmental theories are far more complex because they relax the assumption of general causality and adopt a more dynamic position about the relationship between changes in life circumstances and changes in crime. In this article we examine whether the added complexity of a developmental theory of crime is preferable to the more parsimonious general/static theory of Gottfredson and Hirschi. We find that the evidence is not faithful to either a pure static/general model or a pure developmental model of crime. Our findings appeal to a theoretical middle ground that assumes that pathways to crime are more similar than different and that allows for a causal effect of past offending and life experiences on future criminality. When viewed in the context of previous studies that have assessed offending over the life course, our results suggest that further theoretical development can profit from studying issues of measurement and sample composition.
In order to test Maccoby and Martin's revision of Baumrind's conceptual framework, the families of approximately 4,100 14-18-year-olds were classified into 1 of 4 groups (authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, or neglectful) on the basis of the adolescents' ratings of their parents on 2 dimensions: acceptance/involvement and strictness/supervision. The youngsters were then contrasted along 4 sets of outcomes: psychosocial development, school achievement, internalized distress, and problem behavior. Results indicate that adolescents who characterize their parents as authoritative score highest on measures of psychosocial competence and lowest on measures of psychological and behavioral dysfunction; the reverse is true for adolescents who describe their parents as neglectful. Adolescents whose parents are characterized as authoritarian score reasonably well on measures indexing obedience and conformity to the standards of adults but have relatively poorer self-conceptions than other youngsters. In contrast, adolescents from indulgent homes evidence a strong sense of self-confidence but report a higher frequency of substance abuse and school misconduct and are less engaged in school. The results provide support for Maccoby and Martin's framework and indicate the need to distinguish between two types of “permissive” families: those that are indulgent and those that are neglectful.