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Effects of Social Area Characteristics on the Relationship Between Social Class and Delinquency

NCJ Number
168480
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 25 Issue: 2 Dated: 1997 Pages: 125-139
Author(s)
G R Jarjoura; R Triplett
Date Published
1997
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This study was a replication and extension of Johnstone's (1978) work on the effects of social class and the social characteristics of areas on delinquency.
Abstract
Using a sample of middle and junior high school students from several cities around the United States, the analysis conducted by Johnstone, who used a sample of youths from Chicago, was replicated. Students in middle and junior high schools in several cities across the United States completed questionnaires in the spring of 1982. Questions in the survey targeted, among other things, self-reports of delinquent behavior, victimization experiences, and official contacts with police. Students also were asked to report information on their parents' educational background and occupation. The measures were constructed to be as similar as possible to Johnstone's study. Study findings, although providing evidence for the external validity of Johnstone's results, call into question the way in which social class operates as a contextual influence on behavior. Study findings provide more convincing support for opportunity explanations of delinquency than for relative deprivation arguments. The findings suggest that area status has a greater impact than family status on the level of involvement in offending. The pattern of results for the two dimensions of social class are consistent with relative deprivation explanations, but this may be an artifact of the analytical strategy used in this study. The relative rankings reported by Johnstone were based on differences between means, which were often quite small. Had he considered the main effects in a regression analysis, he may have found similar results to the findings reported for the current study. 7 tables, 6 notes, and 26 references