NCJ Number
180044
Journal
Theoretical Criminology Volume: 3 Issue: 3 Dated: August 1999 Pages: 259-285
Date Published
1999
Length
17 pages
Annotation
This article presents a theory of the intergenerational causes of juvenile delinquency and uses data from a study that began in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1976 to trace linkages between adolescent educational orientations and class-linked life-course events, including the behavior of the participants' children.
Abstract
A life course-capitalization theory of intergenerational causes of delinquency proposes that educational disinvestment, in the form of low educational aspirations and educational underachievement, is a core adolescent source of disadvantage and that subsequent adult and parenting problems are grafted on to this disadvantage. The panel study began as a cross-sectional survey of high school students in 1976, followed events and experiences from adolescence to adulthood and parenthood, and how includes more than 200 parents with children age 6 years and older. Findings supported the life-course capitalization theory and indicated that juvenile delinquency is a consequence of the adolescent educational disinvestment of parents who are subsequently and cumulatively disadvantaged in preparing their children for school. A prospective parent's educational disinvestment as an adolescent leads to dropping out of school, teen parenthood, unemployment, and marriage and parenting problems, all of which contribute cumulatively to the intergenerational causation of delinquency among children and adolescents. Main and interactive effects of parental unemployment were apparent in this model and provided a clearer picture of how class relates to the intergenerational causation of delinquency. However, parental self-reported delinquency and police contacts in adolescence do not have intergenerational effects. This lack of effects may relate to the minor form of commonly reported delinquencies. The research also used Rytina's life-chances methodology to summarize the intergenerational life-course capitalization model. Tables, figure, and 55 references (Author abstract modified)