پیوند ضعیف مدرسه و بزهکاری در طول زمان: اثرات دو جانبه و تفاوت های جنسی

Abstract The association between poor school bonding and delinquency has only been partly addressed in earlier research. Using a longitudinal design, the objective of our study was to investigate possible bidirectional effects and sex differences between adolescents’ experienced school bonding and self-rated delinquency over time. A total of 788 adolescents (353 boys and 435 girls) were investigated by questionnaire at age 14 and 16. Poor school attachment and commitment as well as poor teacher attachment were found to be stronger determinants of delinquency for males than for females. Delinquency predicted poor school commitment for both boys and girls, and poor school attachment for girls, thus indicating bidirectional effects over time and sex differences in some of the bidirectional effects. The study concludes that the delinquency propensity of adolescent boys may be affected by all school bonding dimensions, whereas for girls it is their relationship with their teachers that is of significance.

Results Factor analyses and multigroup CFAs of school bonding items In order to confirm the school bonding dimensions; school attachment, school commitment, teacher attachment and teacher defiance we conducted an explorative orthogonal (Varimax) Factor analysis, with the school bonding items forced into four factors. The reason that the items were forced into four factors was based on previous research and our theoretical assumption that the items made up four factors. The analyses were carried out for the grade eight and the grade nine data, for boys and girls together. The eigenvalues for the four factors in grade eight and nine ranged between 4.88 and 0.72. The four factors were: school attachment, school commitment, teacher attachment and teacher defiance. For the factor school attachment the items loaded between 0.67 and 0.55 in grade eight and between 0.73 and 0.56 in grade nine. The items were: Do you like school?, How would you describe the relationship between you and school? and Do you think school feels like a prison?. For the factor school commitment the items loaded 0.69 and 0.59 in grade eight, and 0.88 and 0.58 in grade nine. The items were: Are you satisfied with your schoolwork? and Do you try your best in school?. For the factor teacher attachment the items loaded between 0.67 and 0.49 in grade eight and 0.75 and 0.46 in grade nine. The items were: Do you like your teachers?, Do you think that your teachers are fair with you? and Do you think that your teachers like you?. For the factor teacher defiance the items loaded 0.81 and 0.58 in grade eight and 0.77 and 0.65 in grade nine. The items were: Do you usually talk back to your teachers? and Do you feel defiant against your teachers?. Thus, the factor analysis supported the four school bonding dimensions we created according to theory. Multigroup CFAs were subsequently conducted in order to test whether the four factors of school bonding were equivalent across both male and female adolescents in both grade eight and grade nine. Overall the multigroup model for the eight grade data had an acceptable fit even though the difference in χ2 values was statistically significant. For the nine grade data, the multigroup model had an acceptable fit and the difference in χ2 values was statistically non-significant, thus supporting measurement invariance. Based on these findings we concluded that measurement invariance between boys and girls were adequately confirmed, thus the factor loadings on the four dimensions of school bonding were equivalent between groups.