Contextualizing Stigma: How School Cultural and Structural Contexts Affect Interpersonal Exclusion Following Criminal Justice Contact

• In Event: Friendship Networks and Delinquency in Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood, Session 2: Peers and Punishment

Abstract

Criminal justice contact is associated with weakened social ties, which is termed interpersonal exclusion (Jacobsen, 2020). Prior research has relied on labeling theory to understand this association, but most assume criminal justice stigma is experienced similarly across social settings and ignore contextual conditions that breed stigma. Revisiting Goffman (1963), I argue that context matters because it influences the perceptibility (i.e., whether it is known to others) and dis-credibility (i.e., whether it hurts one’s reputation) of justice contact, the two necessary conditions for stigma. I contribute to labeling theory by examining how school cultural and structural contexts affect interpersonal exclusion following adolescent arrest. For cultural context, I focus on delinquency weighted by popularity as a reflection of a community’s broad attitudes toward deviance and arrest. I expect deviance and arrest to be less discrediting and less damaging to relationships in schools where delinquent individuals are more popular. For structural context, I focus on network closure, the degree of network interconnectedness, as it reflects a community’s information channels. I expect arrest to be more perceptible and more impactful on relationships in schools with higher network closure. I test these propositions using PROSPER, a longitudinal school-based study with rich adolescent peer network information.

Author

• Guyu Sun, University of Maryland, College Park