NCJ Number
181578
Journal
Journal of Crime & Justice Volume: 22 Issue: 2 Dated: 1999 Pages: 55-90
Editor(s)
J. M. Miller
Date Published
1999
Length
36 pages
Annotation
Dimensions employed by Elliott (1985) to test strain, control, and social learning theory were employed in a cross-national gender analysis of their relative ability to explain the delinquent behavior of American and Indian high school boys and girls.
Abstract
Data were obtained in India in 1990 as part of a larger comparative study of delinquency and youth crime involving high school boys and girls in Madras. These data were compared to a sample of high school respondents to the 1978 National Youth Survey in the United States. Findings revealed significant differences across countries and genders in self-reported delinquency rates and in most variables used to measure theoretical dimensions. Of the three theories, social learning theory appeared to be the only argument consistently related to delinquency across both countries and genders, although the relative explanatory ability of variables varied by country but not by gender. Implications of the findings for explaining the etiology of delinquent behavior around the world and for casting light on understanding worldwide variations in juvenile offense rates are discussed. Supplemental data on reliability and validity measures used in the study are appended. 78 references, 6 notes, and 4 tables