Abstract
This chapter examines the major sources of strain for urban students, migrant children, and deviant youth. Drawing on the youths’ own words, the findings in my interviews showed that failure to meet parents’ high expectations for academic success (i.e. academic strain) is the major source of strain for urban youth. Migrant youth tend to suffer from financial strain caused by the families’ unstable and insecure financial situations. For deviant youth, relational strain, as a consequence of broken families and changing family relations, has the greatest impact. Youths who give up studies under tremendous academic strain, who grow up in broken families, or experience negative family relations are most likely to turn to delinquency as a way of coping.
Bibliography
Agnew, R. (1992). Foundation for a general strain theory of crime and delinquency. Criminology, 30, 47–87.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1994). Ecological models of human development. In International encyclopedia of education (2nd ed., pp. 1643–1647). Oxford: Elsevier.
Chen, W. D. (2009). Prevention study report: Protection of migrant youths’ rights and interests and crime. Beijing: China People’s Public Security University Press. (in Chinese).
China Youth Research Center Red Paper Task Force. (2004). The main characteristics of juvenile delinquency. China Youth Research, 11, 68–83. (in Chinese).
Huang, Y. L. (2001). Characteristics, causes, and preventive measures of juvenile delinquency in contemporary China. Journal of Youth Study, 4, 22–26. (in Chinese).
Jin, X. H., & Ying, C. (2010). Lack of mutual social support system and Urban Foreign juvenile delinquency among migrant youth. Lan Zhou Academic Journal, 8, 100–104. (in Chinese).
Liu, L. L., & Cheung, C. K. (2012). Muddling through: A cultural perspective on life in schools for China’s deviant students. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 17(4), 243–246.
Shen, J. J. (2003). The lost primary and middle school students and juvenile delinquency. Journal of Heilongjiang Administration Institute of Politics and Law, 2, 78–79. (in Chinese).
Sun, C. X., Li, C. P., Fang, M. Z., Li, S. R., Sun, Y. G., & Zhang, C. (1993). A comprehensive study on related factors of juvenile delinquency. China Magazine of Psychological Health, 3, 117–119. (in Chinese).
Tian, L. L., & Gilman, R. (2009). School satisfaction among Chinese mainland adolescents. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 37, 1095–1100.
Wang, S. A., & Han, B. (2014). Juvenile delinquency in the 21st century China: The situation, characteristics, trends, and control measures. Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Research, 5, 15–22.
Wang, S. H., Wang, M. H., Liu, W., & Gu, H. R. (2001). Study of the effect of immediate life contexts on delinquency. Journal of Dalian University, 22(3), 66–69. (in Chinese).
Wang, G., Chang, D. J., & Liang, L. (2008). The development characteristics of high-school students’ subjective well-being and its relationship with academic self. Chinese Journal of Special Education, 11, 90–96.
Wang, L. J., Wang, W. C., Gu, H. G., Zhan, P. D., Yang, X. X., & Barnard, J. (2014). Relationships among teacher support, peer conflict resolution, and school emotional experiences in adolescents from shanghai. Social Behavior and Personality, 42(1), 99–114.
Xia, B. P., Li, M. S., Zhou, M. X., Liu, Z. B., & Huang, X. J. (2010). Investigation and countermeasure research on juvenile delinquency in Shanghai. Journal of Shanghai Ocean University, 19(3), 421–426. (in Chinese).
Xiang, G. (1999). Delinquency and its prevention in China. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 43(1), 61–70.
Zhao, J., & Zhu, P. Y. (2011). A Study on deviant peer influence and delinquency in reference to conventional peer influence. Social Sciences, 2, 45–50. (in Chinese).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bao, WN. (2017). Strain, Coping, and Delinquency among Different Groups of Youth. In: Delinquent Youth in a Transforming China. Palgrave Advances in Criminology and Criminal Justice in Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63727-3_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63727-3_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-63726-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-63727-3
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)