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The Kids Aren’t Alright: School Attachment, Depressive Symptoms, and Gun Carrying at School

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Abstract

Social science has frequently examined the relationships between school environment and delinquency, mental health and delinquency, and school environment and mental health. However, little to no research to date has examined the interrelationship between these variables simultaneously, especially at it relates specifically to delinquent acts committed at school. The current study uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to look at the interrelationship between these variables. What is found in this data is that the relationship between negative mental health states and delinquency at school, specifically measured as depressive symptoms and gun carrying at school, respectively, is possibly a spurious one, wherein both of these variables are partly shaped by school attachment, which accounts for their correlation. Implications for theory and policy are discussed.

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Notes

  1. While this study will invoke many of the concepts found in general strain theory, we do not use general strain theory as a theoretical guide, because rather than focusing on a lack of school attachment as a strain that increases negative emotions which then result in deviance (i.e., the mediating relationship general strain theory proposes), we instead focus on and find that the negative emotions-deviance relationship is a spurious one, with school attachment as the key confounding variable.

  2. Given the rarity of the dependent variable, rare events logit estimation was considered. However, this is not an option in Stata 13.1 when the “svyset” command is used to correct for sampling design to unbias coefficients, and thus standard logit estimation was utilized. If the models are run without the “svyset” command, which is not advised by Add Health, and the “firthlogit” command is used to run a type of rare events logit estimation, results that are substantively identical to those presented in this paper are produced. These results are available upon request.

  3. For example, while later waves of data have better questions concerning anger, the only one available in Waves I and II comes from the parent interview in Wave I, where the target respondent’s parent was asked, “Does your child have a bad temper?” Responses were simply recorded as “yes” or “no.”

  4. While there is a large age range in Add Health, the vast majority (88.6%) of respondents were between 14 and 18 years old at Wave II.

  5. Regression models run with additional SES controls for parental education, parental employment, and total family income produce identical results for the key variables of interest. With these SES measures infrequently showing statistical significance and having little impact on the results, a more parsimonious model with only the public assistance variable is presented. Results with all of these SES measures included are available upon request.

  6. While fear of victimization has also consistently been tied to gun carrying among adolescents (see Melde et al., 2009; Wilcox et al., 2006), measures assessing fear of victimization are not available in Add Health.

  7. For these OLS models we computed the ln + 1 of the depression variable to smooth out the distribution. For this logged variable, skewness = −.81 and kurtosis = .77.

  8. These variables, and guidance on how to appropriately use them, are provided by Add Health. Specifically, Add Health respondents have an individual weighting variable, a cluster variable based on their school, and a stratification variable based on their census region. These variables are identified in Stata 13.1 by using the “svyset” command.

  9. Stata 13.1 will not produce standardized (beta) coefficients for regression models that have been “svyset.” This is for statistical reasons. Stata 13.1 and other programs are only willing to consider variance decomposition when data are understood to be independent and identically distributed (IID). Using the “svyset” command is specifically meant to correct for the data not being IID, therefore Stata 13.1 is unwilling to consider ratios of variance in these models.

  10. When data are “svyset” in Stata 13.1, the M & Z pseudo r-sq. value is the only one of the numerous possible pseudo r-sq. values that is presented when using the “fitstat” command after running a logistic regression model.

  11. Traditional tests of model fit improvement, such as the likelihood ratio test or Wald test, will not run in STATA when data is “svyset.” However, if the models are run without the “svyset” command, which is not recommended in the case of these data, the likelihood ratio test produces a significant chi-square statistic suggesting model fit improvement when school attachment is considered between models 1 and 3 (chi-sq. = 65.81, prob. > chi-sq. = 0.0000), and models 2 and 4 (chi-sq. = 26, prob. > chi-sq. = 0.0000).

  12. Several alternative moderator and mediator models were considered, none of which fit the data as well as the presented models. School attachment and depressive symptoms did not significantly interact in their association with gun carrying at school, at Waves I or II. Also, mediating models were not supported. When controlling for school attachment at Wave I, depressive symptoms, at Waves I and II, do not significantly relate to gun carrying. Also, controlling for depressive symptoms does nothing to change the magnitude of the relationship of school attachment, at Waves I or II, with gun carrying. Results are available upon request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Memphis, 311 McCord Hall, Memphis, TN, 38152, USA

    Stephen J. Watts, Karli Province & Kayla Toohy

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  1. Stephen J. Watts
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Correspondence to Stephen J. Watts.

Appendix: Items for scaled measures

Appendix: Items for scaled measures

Depression Wave I

How often was each of the following things true in the past week?

  1. 1.

    You were bothered by things that usually don’t bother you.

  2. 2.

    You didn’t feel like eating, your appetite was poor.

  3. 3.

    You felt that you could not shake off the blues, even with help from your family and your friends.

  4. 4.

    You felt you were just as good as other people. (reverse coded)

  5. 5.

    You felt depressed.

  6. 6.

    You felt that you were too tired to do things.

  7. 7.

    You felt hopeful about the future. (reverse coded)

  8. 8.

    You thought your life had been a failure.

  9. 9.

    You felt fearful.

  10. 10.

    You were happy. (reverse coded)

  11. 11.

    You talked less than usual.

  12. 12.

    You felt lonely.

  13. 13.

    People were unfriendly to you.

  14. 14.

    You enjoyed life. (reverse coded)

  15. 15.

    You felt sad.

  16. 16.

    You felt that people disliked you.

  17. 17.

    It was hard to get started doing things.

  18. 18.

    You felt life was not worth living.

School Attachment Wave I

During the current/most recent school year, how often have you had trouble…

  1. 1.

    getting along with your teachers?

  2. 2.

    getting along with other students?

  3. 3.

    How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements?

  4. 4.

    You feel close to people at your school.

  5. 5.

    You feel like a part of your school.

  6. 6.

    Students at your school are prejudiced.

  7. 7.

    You are happy to be at your school.

  8. 8.

    The teachers at your school treat students fairly.

  9. 9.

    You feel safe in your school.

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Watts, S.J., Province, K. & Toohy, K. The Kids Aren’t Alright: School Attachment, Depressive Symptoms, and Gun Carrying at School. Am J Crim Just 44, 146–165 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-018-9438-6

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