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Cumulative Disadvantage Across the Life Course: Results from a Nationally Representative Sample

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2017, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Criminal Justice.
It is well known that individuals are differentially exposed to both individual and social risk factors. That is to say the causes of crime and delinquency vary from person to person. Research suggests that certain characteristics such as low birth weight, cognitive deficits, and low self-control are prominent individual-level risk factors. Social risk factors include parental unemployment, low social support, and neighborhood characteristics. Although there is a large body of evidence to support the individual and social risk factor approaches, there is comparatively less research concerning whether individual and social deficits converge to produce a cumulative effect. The current study uses multiple waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to examine both the distinct and cumulative effects of myriad theoretically informed risk factors—both individual and social—on antisocial behavior. Results reveal that certain individual risk factors such as drug/alcohol use and low self-control are consistent predictors of delinquency throughout the life course. Others are less consistent in their effect on delinquency over time. That said, the measure of cumulative disadvantage has a fairly consistent relationship with delinquency. Specifically, the association was nonlinear, wherein the predicted rate of delinquency increases dramatically for respondents who have 10 or more risk factors. Prior delinquency, too, is a consistent indicator of later involvement in delinquency. These findings, and others, are placed in both a theoretical and practical context. On the latter—the practical context—I propose that it may be time for criminology to consider taking a “risk-factor-wide” approach to the study of delinquency. Doing so could improve criminologists’ ability to understand the causes and correlates of delinquency.
J.C. Barnes, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Francis Cullen, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Nathaniel E. Anderson, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
John Wright, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
199 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • TenEyck, M. F. (2017). Cumulative Disadvantage Across the Life Course: Results from a Nationally Representative Sample [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin149580728755573

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • TenEyck, Michael. Cumulative Disadvantage Across the Life Course: Results from a Nationally Representative Sample. 2017. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin149580728755573.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • TenEyck, Michael. "Cumulative Disadvantage Across the Life Course: Results from a Nationally Representative Sample." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin149580728755573

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)