Beyond Peer Influence and Selection: A Gendered Pathways Analysis of Social Environmental Predictors of Change in Child and Peer Delinquency

• Author: Glenn D. Walters
• DOI: 10.1177/1557085118804349
• Published date: 01 January 2020
• Date: 01 January 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085118804349

Feminist Criminology

2020, Vol. 15(1) 3 –23

© The Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/1557085118804349

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Article

Beyond Peer Influence and

Selection: A Gendered

Pathways Analysis of Social

Environmental Predictors

of Change in Child and Peer

Delinquency

Glenn D. Walters1

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether maternal closeness and

participation in unstructured routine activities differentially predicted change in child

and peer delinquency for female and male youth above and beyond the effects of peer

influence and selection. Participants were 3,370 (1,759 boys, 1,611 girls) members

of the Fragile Families and Child Welfare Study. When regression analyses were

performed on boys and girls separately, unstructured routine activities effectively

predicted a rise in child and peer delinquency in boys and maternal closeness

successfully predicted a drop in child and peer delinquency in girls, findings consistent

with gendered pathways theory.

Keywords

peer influence, peer selection, closeness to mother, unstructured routine activities

Criminologists have traditionally advanced two principal interpretations of the well-

known relationship between child and peer delinquency. They are commonly referred

to as the peer influence and peer selection effects. The peer influence effect assumes

that the individual learns the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques necessary for crime

through his or her associations with those already involved in crime. This position is

adopted by theorists affiliated with social learning school of criminology (Akers,

1Kutztown University, PA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Glenn D. Walters, Department of Criminal Justice, Kutztown University, Kutztown, PA 19530-0730,

USA.

Email: walters@kutztown.edu

804349FCXXXX10.1177/1557085118804349Feminist CriminologyWalters

research-article2018

4 Feminist Criminology 15(1)

1998; Warr, 2002). The peer selection effect is said to occur when someone already

involved in crime begins associating with a delinquent peer group through shared

interests, values, and beliefs. This homophily or “birds of a feather” perspective on the

child–peer delinquency relationship is adopted by proponents of social and self-

control theories of crime (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990; Kiesner, Poulin, & Nicotra,

2003). The peer influence and peer selection effects have both received strong empiri-

cal support, and it is generally agreed that each plays a role in explaining the well-

documented connection between child or participant delinquency and peer delinquency

(Monahan, Steinberg, & Cauffman, 2009; Sedding, 2014; Svensson, Burk, Stattin, &

Kerr, 2012). The unique contribution this study makes to the research literature on

delinquency and gender is testing the possibility that two variables differentially explain

future peer and child delinquency in males and females above and beyond the effects of

peer influence and selection. Two social variables with potentially divergent effects on

girls and boys, that is, maternal closeness and unsupervised routine activities, served as

predictor variables in this study, and a third variable, parental knowledge, served as a

control variable, given its potential impact on the predictor variables.

Maternal Closeness

Two putative predictors were selected for analysis in this study based on prior research

showing that each does a reasonably good job of predicting child delinquency, peer

delinquency, or both. Emotional attachment or closeness to a parent is one such predic-

tor. Using longitudinal data from the Gang Resistance Education and Training

(GREAT) study, Higgins, Jennings, and Mahoney (2010) uncovered a strong negative

correlation between estimates of maternal and paternal bonding, on one hand, and

criminal offending, on the other hand. Four years later, Schroeder, Higgins, and

Mowen (2014) discovered that although maternal attachment in adolescence corre-

lated negatively with self-reported offending, the effect was no longer significant once

these individuals had entered early adulthood. More recently, Alvarez-Rivera (2016)

determined that maternal attachment correlated with self-reported criminality in a

group of White and Hispanic college students, independent of the effects of low self-

control. In a study that examined maternal and paternal closeness and control, Vieno,

Nation, Pastore, and Santinello (2009) observed a significant effect for maternal close-

ness and control that varied as a function of gender: Specifically, maternal control

predicted delinquent behavior in boys but not girls, and maternal closeness predicted

parental knowledge in girls but not boys. Although maternal closeness predicted delin-

quency in both boys and girls, the effect was more than twice as strong in girls.

Unstructured Routine Activities

Unlike maternal closeness, which is classified as a protective factor because it

decreases a child’s chances of future delinquent involvement, unstructured routine

activities are classified as risk factors, in that, they increase a child’s odds of future

delinquent involvement (Osgood, Wilson, O’Malley, Bachman, & Johnston, 1996).