Strain, School Characteristics, and Delinquency among Rural-to-Urban Migrant Adolescents in China: A Test of Macro-level Strain Theory

• In Event: Urban - Rural Migration, Parenting, and Predictors of Delinquency among Chinese Youth

Abstract

Using data from a school survey in Guangzhou, this study examines the propensity for delinquency among Chinese adolescents, with a particular focus on how school characteristics and their interaction with individual-level strain affect delinquency. Results from multilevel Rasch models show that school-level strain has a positive effect on delinquency, above and beyond individual strain. That is, schools containing a relatively strained student population promote delinquency among students. Moreover, aggregate school-level socioeconomic status (SES) tends to condition the relationship between strain and delinquency, suggesting that strained adolescents attending lower-SES schools are more likely to engage in delinquency, compared to strained adolescents in schools with higher SES. Surprisingly, migrant adolescents are less likely to cope with strain through delinquent behavior than native urban adolescents, which seems to challenge the dominant Chinese discourse that migrant adolescents are more vulnerable when experiencing strain. Besides, there is virtually no difference in the moderating effects of school characteristics on the strain-delinquency link between migrant and urban adolescents. The findings of this study show some support for the macro-level strain theory, and call for effective intervention programs in schools, at home, and in society.

Author

• Xi Chen, The Chinese University of Hong Kong