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Community and School Contexts in Youth Gang Involvement: Combining Social Bonds and Social Organization Perspectives

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Abstract

Social bonds and social organization theory are combined to examine schools’ roles in regulating youth gang involvement in the context of community changes—an integrated approach to analyze psychological and sociological influences simultaneously. A subsample (N = 269) from Gottfredson et al.’s (A national study of delinquency prevention in school final report, Gottfredson Associates, Inc., Ellicott City, MD, 2000) national sample of schools to examine school-based, gang-prevention programs was combined with U.S. Census data to model the effects of community changes and school social organization on student’s probability of gang involvement. Changes in the community’s level of concentrated disadvantage and racial heterogeneity were related to a school’s level of disorder. The probability of a student being gang-involved almost triples if the student attends a school one standard deviation below the sample mean School Social Bonds score; it doubles if the student attends a school one standard deviation above the sample School Disorder mean. Student characteristics partially mediated the relationship between School Disorder and gang involvement. Findings support extending social bonds theory to the school level. School-based, gang-prevention efforts may benefit from climates characterized by prosocial bonds and low social disorganization, especially for schools in highly-disadvantaged and/or demographically-changing communities.

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Acknowledgements

Collection of the data used in this research was supported in part by Grant 96-MU-MU-0008 from the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice. Additional support was provided by Grant 98-JN-FX-0004 from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice, and by the U.S. Department of Education. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the positions or policy of any sponsor. These data would not be available without the involvement of administrators, facilitators, teachers, and other school staff, as well as the research team in the original study. I would like to thank Gary Gottfredson, Denise Gottfredson, Mary Ann Hoffman, William Strein, and Terence Thornberry for their advice. Nisha Gottfredson provided helpful statistical advice.

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  1. Office of Research and Program Evaluation, Howard County Public School System, 10910 Clarksville Pike, Ellicott City, MD, 21042, USA

    Ho Lam Yiu

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Yiu, H.L. Community and School Contexts in Youth Gang Involvement: Combining Social Bonds and Social Organization Perspectives. Urban Rev 53, 295–317 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-020-00567-x

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