Parenting Interacts with Social Setting

Abstract

There is a large body of evidence to show that family functioning is related to adolescent delinquency and adult criminal careers. Yet most of this research has grown out of a psychological tradition that imagines the family as an enclosed microsocial environment. As pointed out by Bronfenbrenner (1979), himself a psychologist working within this tradition, it is unrealistic to view the family as a sealed container in that way. Each family is located at the centre of a series of widening social circles, not neatly arranged in concentric fashion, but overlapping in complex patterns. Also, there are power relationships between different levels in hierarchies which correspond only vaguely to these widening networks of relationships.