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Violent Victimization and Perpetration During Adolescence: Developmental Stage Dependent Ecological Models

  • Empirical Research
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Abstract

Using a variant of the ecological-transactional model and developmental theories of delinquency on a nationally representative sample of adolescents, the current study explored the ecological predictors of violent victimization, perpetration, and both for three different developmental stages during adolescence. We examined the relative influence of individual and family characteristics, peers, and neighborhood characteristics on the odds of experiencing violent victimization and perpetration over time with two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health for those adolescents who reported no exposure to violence at Wave 1 (N = 8,267; 50% female; 59% Caucasian; 17% African-American; 14% Hispanic). We found that more proximal factors differentiated between different experiences with violence at Wave 2. Also, negative peers significantly differentiated between violent victimization and perpetration, and this influence was strongest in early adolescence. In exploratory analyses, we found that middle adolescents were particularly vulnerable to their disadvantaged neighborhoods for a high-risk group. This analysis is one of the few that considers multiple ecological contexts simultaneously and provides support for developmental differences within adolescence on the influence that peers and neighborhoods have in predicting violent victimization and perpetration.

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Acknowledgments

This research uses data from Add Health, a program project designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris and funded by a Grant P01-HD31921 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 17 other agencies. Special acknowledgement goes to Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Persons interested in obtaining data files from Add Health should contact Add Health, Carolina Population Center, 123 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-2524 (www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth/contract.html). We thank Greta Massetti, Linda Anne Valle, Janet Saul, and Tom Simon for helpful comments on prior versions of this manuscript.

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The findings and conclusions of this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4770 Buford Highway NE, MS-F64, Atlanta, GA, 30341, USA

    Jennifer L. Matjasko

  2. Department of Sociology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, HHB 460K, 1530 3rd Ave. S., Birmingham, AL, 35294-1152, USA

    Belinda L. Needham

  3. Human Development and Family Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, A2700, Austin, TX, 78712-0141, USA

    Leslie N. Grunden & Amy Feldman Farb

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  1. Jennifer L. Matjasko
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Correspondence to Jennifer L. Matjasko.

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Matjasko, J.L., Needham, B.L., Grunden, L.N. et al. Violent Victimization and Perpetration During Adolescence: Developmental Stage Dependent Ecological Models. J Youth Adolescence 39, 1053–1066 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-010-9508-7

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