Predicting Association with Deviant Peers: The Importance of Parenting and Place

• In Event: Explaining Delinquency and Drug Use in the Context of Neighborhood

Abstract

Although a great deal of research has been dedicated to explaining how associations with deviant peers leads to increased deviance among youth, identification of risk factors for interactions with deviant peers remains understudied. Recent examinations of the role of peers have focused on the role opportunity and routine activities may have in explaining youth associations with deviant friends. We take this research a step further and argue that associations with deviant peers may be explained from an ecological perspective whereby neighborhood conditions influence parenting choices and management strategies which in turn may impact whether youth associate with delinquent others. Specifically, we contextualize parenting strategies and locate them within the home and beyond the home in order to investigate how intersections between what happens in the neighborhood and family management practices may lead to more or less opportunities for youth to associate with delinquent friends. Using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, we examine the multilevel relationships between neighborhood, parenting strategies, and youth associations with deviant peers in an important step towards understanding the ecological relationships that may shape youth peer interactions.

Authors

• Maria Joao Lobo Antunes, Towson University

• Eileen M. Ahlin, Penn State Harrisburg