Adolescent Deviance as a Function of Parents, Peers and Community Influence

Abstract

Recent studies conflict as to the relative importance of parents and peers as causal agents in juvenile misbehavior. Hirschi and other proponents of social control theory see parental bonding as preventing involvement in delinquency; Sutherland, Short and others envision youth as having differential learning opportunities, and see deviant peers and other negative learning opportunities in the community as more contributory to participation in antisocial acts. Part of the discrepancy in findings relative to these two perspectives has to do with the different in the way concepts are measured, based on different areas of interest. This study attempts to contrast social-emotional measure of parental influence with measure of parental control (knowledge, supervision, communication and discipline) in an effort to demonstrate the importance of the effect of parental control on deviant behavior.