The Relative Influence of Parental Attachment, Peer Attachment, School Attachment, and School Alienation on Delinquency among High School Students in Turkey

ABSTRACT

Although numerous studies have confirmed the relationship between social bonds to pro-social others and delinquency in Western countries, research focusing on the same relationship in non-Western countries is scarce. This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by examining the relationship between social bonds to pro-social others and several types of delinquency among high school students in Turkey. Results showed that the extent of an adolescent’s social bonds with his/her parents, peers, and schools had significant and diverging effects on delinquency. We also found bonds to parents and peers to have moderating effects on how school bonds affect delinquency.

Notes

¹ The ECAD is a non-profit organization that has member cities all over Europe and serves with the purpose of drug free European cities. In 2005, the organization launched a research project under the name of “Youth in Europe” in corporation with member cities to develop a solution and policy in response to drug problems among adolescents. Istanbul, as a member city of ECAD, participated in the “Youth in Europe Project 2008.” The data used in this study comes from this project. See ECAD’s website for more detail: http://www.ecad.net.

² According to the Addressed Based Population Registration System (TurkStat 2015), in 2007, there were 65,000 individuals aged 15–19 years in Bagcilar, and there were 22,075 high school students attending high schools in Bagcilar. Considering that the age range of high school students is 14–18 years of age in Turkey, we cannot exactly calculate the attendance rates of the high school aged individuals in Bagcilar in 2007.

³ The initial dataset consisted of 2,627 high school students who were randomly selected from the available 22,075 students. After removing respondents with missing cases, the final dataset consisted of 2,445 students.

⁴ The ICSRA was founded in 1990 with the collaboration of the Iceland Ministry of Education and city municipalities of Iceland. Since then, the ICSRA has conducted a series of surveys and helped produce policy aimed at decreasing the use of drugs, tobacco, and alcohol among adolescents in Iceland. The survey used in this study was designed by ICSRA and originated from a 5-year project, called “Drug-Free Iceland 1997–2002.” See ICSRA’s website for more detail: http://www.rannsoknir.is/rg/english.

⁵ The survey we used has three questions about school absenteeism: (1) “How many days absent from school during the last 30 days: because of illness”; (2) “How many days absent from school during the last 30 days: skipped classes”; and (3) “How many days absent from school during the last 30 days: other reasons.” As can be seen here, the first question examines skipping school with a legitimate reason, and the last question examines it with a reason, which we assume to be a legitimate one. The second question, on the other hand, examines skipping school without a legitimate reason. Considering the Turkish law, which allows students to skip school a maximum of 20 days a year without a legitimate reason, we used the second question to examine school absenteeism without a legitimate reason to see how bonds to pro-social others affect school absenteeism. We argue that usage of the first or the third question might bias our findings due to the conditions they have, school absenteeism with a legitimate reason, which might strengthen or weaken the relationship between social bonding variables and delinquency.

⁶ Other alternative family types include: “mother and her partner,” “father and his partner,” “I live with friends,” “I live on my own,” and “I live in different arrangements.”

⁷ The estimate of the dispersion coefficients in the output of the negative binomial regression model suggests that the negative binomial regression model is more appropriate than the Poisson. For the mean and variance of the dependent variable, see Table 1.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Durmus A. Yuksek

DURMUS A. YUKSEK earned his Ph.D. in Sociology in 2015 from Louisiana State University. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Turkish Military Academy. His research interests include sociology of education, sociology of culture, and social capital.

Ozgur Solakoglu

OZGUR SOLAKOGLU earned his Ph.D. in Sociology in 2015 from the University of North Texas. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Turkish Military Academy. His research interests include globalization and comparative criminology.