TY - JOUR
T1 - Patterns of School Victimization and Problem Behaviors
T2 - Longitudinal Associations with Socioeconomic Well-Being and Criminal Justice Involvement
AU - Heath, Ryan D.
AU - Tan, Kevin
AU - Guzzy, Jennifer S.
AU - Henry, Briyana
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Kate Epstein and Beighley Thornock for their helpful suggestions and input on a previous version of this manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2022/4
Y1 - 2022/4
N2 - Background: Middle school victimization and problem behaviors often co-occur, but little is known about patterns of co-occurrence, or how long effects persist into adulthood. Objective: Drawing on general strain theory, this study aimed to identify sex-specific profiles of victimization and problem behaviors during middle school, and their association with socioeconomic, violence, and criminal justice outcomes in young adulthood. Method: Latent class analyses was conducted on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth–1997, including subsamples of seventh grade females (n = 529) and males (n = 494). Results: Two classes were identified for females: (1) low-risk and (2) high-risk; these classes were associated with outcomes in the hypothesized directions. For males, however, there were three groups: (1) low-risk, which reported low rates of victimization and problem behaviors; (2) victimized, with high victimization but low rates of problem behaviors; and (3) high-risk, with high rates of both victimization and problem behaviors. Interestingly, victimized males had socioeconomic and criminal justice outcomes similar to low-risk males, but rates of assault comparable to high-risk males. For example, victimized males were five times more likely to obtain a college degree than high-risk males (27.1% versus 4.6%) and three times less likely to live in poverty (9.5% versus 25.9%), but only slightly less likely to commit assault (41.7% versus 59.8%). However, there was alarming over-representation of Black youth in the high-risk groups. Conclusions: Findings emphasize the urgency with which schools and community agencies need to address victimization and problem behaviors among adolescents, but simultaneously target structural racism.
AB - Background: Middle school victimization and problem behaviors often co-occur, but little is known about patterns of co-occurrence, or how long effects persist into adulthood. Objective: Drawing on general strain theory, this study aimed to identify sex-specific profiles of victimization and problem behaviors during middle school, and their association with socioeconomic, violence, and criminal justice outcomes in young adulthood. Method: Latent class analyses was conducted on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth–1997, including subsamples of seventh grade females (n = 529) and males (n = 494). Results: Two classes were identified for females: (1) low-risk and (2) high-risk; these classes were associated with outcomes in the hypothesized directions. For males, however, there were three groups: (1) low-risk, which reported low rates of victimization and problem behaviors; (2) victimized, with high victimization but low rates of problem behaviors; and (3) high-risk, with high rates of both victimization and problem behaviors. Interestingly, victimized males had socioeconomic and criminal justice outcomes similar to low-risk males, but rates of assault comparable to high-risk males. For example, victimized males were five times more likely to obtain a college degree than high-risk males (27.1% versus 4.6%) and three times less likely to live in poverty (9.5% versus 25.9%), but only slightly less likely to commit assault (41.7% versus 59.8%). However, there was alarming over-representation of Black youth in the high-risk groups. Conclusions: Findings emphasize the urgency with which schools and community agencies need to address victimization and problem behaviors among adolescents, but simultaneously target structural racism.
KW - Criminal justice
KW - Educational attainment
KW - Poverty
KW - School problem behaviors
KW - School victimization
KW - Violence
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U2 - 10.1007/s10566-021-09633-1
DO - 10.1007/s10566-021-09633-1
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85112631230
SN - 1053-1890
VL - 51
SP - 439
EP - 461
JO - Child and Youth Care Forum
JF - Child and Youth Care Forum
IS - 2
ER -