Quantifying Marginality Across the Globe: An Empirical Assessment of Vigil’s Multiple Marginality Model in Predicting Gang Involvement

• Author: Nicole J. Johnson,Alyssa Mendlein
• Date: 01 June 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/1057567720948577
• Published date: 01 June 2022
• Subject Matter: Original Articles

Original Article

Quantifying Marginality

Across the Globe:

An Empirical Assessment

of Vigil’s Multiple Marginality

Model in Predicting

Gang Involvement

Nicole J. Johnson

1

and Alyssa Mendlein

1

Abstract

Vigil’s multiple marginality (MM) model of gang formation has resulted in hypotheses about why

minority youth join gangs, and how these processes play out at multiple levels of analysis and across

contexts. However, with a few exceptions, this framework has rarely been tested quantitatively, and

especially in countries outside of North America. The current study assesses the MM model using

data from the Second International Self-Report Delinquency Study and aggregate country-level data.

Results from multilevel analyses reveal some support for the framework, in that at least one measure

of each component of the MM model was found to be a significant predictor of gang membership.

Controlling for individual and country variables, measures of street socialization exhibited the

strongest effects on gang involvement. Yet not all proposed factors were significant predictors

across all models. Longitudinal data are necessary to fully support the dynamics of the MM model.

Keywords

multiple marginality, gangs, multilevel models, ISRD-2

Because of the violence that often accompanies street gangs, it is important to understand the

fundamental processes that lead youth to join gangs in the first place (Klein, 2007). Fortunately, in

their recent article taking stock of gang scholarship, Decker et al. (2013) note that “The last two

decades have seen exponential growth in the study of gangs, gang members, and the group processes

that make gangs a distinctive group” (p. 369). Yet while the literature has made advances in our

understanding of gang joining (e.g., Densley, 2015; Pyrooz & Densley, 2016), there remain unan-

swered questions regarding the factors that lead youth to become gang-involved. Bette r

1

Department of Criminal Justice, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Nicole J. Johnson, Department of Criminal Justice, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

Email: njohnson@temple.edu

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2022, Vol. 32(

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understanding of how these factors and processes vary based on race or ethnicity is also needed,

particularly because gang-involved youth in the United States tend to belong to ethnic or racial

minority groups (Howell & Griffiths, 2019).

Theoretical development over the past several decades by Vigil (1983, 1988, 2002) has not only

produced hypotheses about processes that lead some minority youth to join gangs but also how these

processes might play out at multiple levels, which has contributed to a complex model that includes

macrolevel social forces, mesolevel neighborhood, school, and family contextual factors, and

individual-level psychological constructs. But despite the qualitative research undertaken by Vigil

(2002) and others (e.g., Lee, 2016; Page & Marcelin, 2003; Van Ngo et al., 2017) in explaining gang

formation and in particular minority gang involvement at multiple levels of analysis, these studies

are often limited in their scope by taking place in a single geographic location with members of only

one or two minority groups (Krohn et al., 2011). Moreover, empirical assessments of these multi-

level and cross-cultural explanatory models of gang formation are needed yet often difficult to test

quantitatively due to data or methodology limitations (Freng & Esbensen, 2007). The current study

adds value to the growing stock of gang literature by quantitatively assessing one such multilevel

model of gang involvement, specifically Vigil’s (2002) multiple marginality (MM) model of gang

formation.

At its inception, the MM model intended to explain why Latino youth living in Los Angeles

formed or joined gangs. Vigil’s model (1988, 2002) proposed that macrohistorical and macrostruc-

tural processes created marginalized groups with disadvantaged ecological/sociological conditions,

which weakened social controls and allowed youth to be “street socialized” and form a “street

identity.” The author eventually proposed to apply this model to any ethno-racial minority group.

Despite multiple qualita tive applications of this mo del to date, there have been re latively few

quantitative tests of these concepts. This study aims to extend this literature base by operationalizing

Vigil’s (1988) MM concepts and incorporating key macrostructural components into our analyses

that have typically been excluded in previous tests. In addition to offering a more complete test of

Vigil’s theoretical model, this study answers Klein’s (2007) call for more comparative gang

research. Van Gemert and Weerman (2015) found that gang delinquency in Europe is “linked to

the marginalized position of migrants youths” (p. 514), suggesting that the MM model could be

applicable outside the United States. By leveraging an international delinquency survey, this study

ultimately examines whether the processes initially intended to describe Latino youth gang involve-

ment in the United States extend to a more diverse population of youth across different country

contexts. In the following sections, we describe Vigil’s MM framework in more detail as well as the

studies that have used this framework to date. We will then describe the current study, including the

data, methods, and analyses used to answer our main research questions. We discuss our findings in

light of Vigil’s model and prior research. In the final sections, we describe some of the limitations of

this work and offer some concluding remarks as well as aims for future research.

Literature Review

MM Framework

Vigil’s (1988, 2002) MM framework describes a sequence of processes that lead to gang forma-

tion among ethnic and racial minorities. He describes this framework as a holistic depiction of how

gangs form amid multiple social, economic, and cultural barriers. These barriers operate at multiple

levels, ranging from macrostructural and macrohistorical factors to mesolevel processes of socio-

economic marginalization to sociopsychological processes of identity formation. His model further

incorporates aspects of existing criminological theory, especially elements of systemic theory (Bur-

sik & Grasmick, 1993; Shaw & McKay, 1942), subculture of violence (Wolfgang & Ferracuti,

152 International Criminal Justice Review 32(2)