A Test of Macro Level Strain Theory on the Variation in Offending Between Schools

• In Event: Roundtable: Crime and Policy

Abstract

Recent criminological studies with a contextual approach have been dominated by analyses of neighborhood effects, where variations in offending and victimization between social units at the macro level are often explained by social disorganization theory. To some extent thereby, criminological studies focusing on contextual variation instead of individual differences has regained its status. Thus, context is still largely being ignored in the kind of research that has the greatest impact on today´s policy and practice. Preventive intervention programs often focus narrowly on modifying individual or personality characteristics instead of environmental ones, where the school setting often is said to be one of the most important areas for crime prevention. In the current study, the overall aim is to examine whether mechanisms related to the school context derived from Macro level strain theory could contribute to the variation in offending between schools in Stockholm, Sweden. The data used is the Stockholm municipality school survey (a sample of almost all students in ninth grade in lower secondary school in Stockholm), combined with register data on social stratification at the school level. The main method being used is multilevel (logistic) regression.

Author

• Julia Sandahl, Stockholm University