The News China Can Use

Xinhua, China’s biggest news wire service, began broadcasting English- language programs on its China IXinhua News Network Corp. (CNC) on July 1. CNC will soon go on to broadcast     

SCHOOL DISORDER: THE INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUAL,INSTITUTIONAL, AND COMMUNITY FACTORS*

Drawing upon control theory, school climate theory, and social disorganization theory, this study examined the relative influence of individual, institutional, and community factors on misconduct in Philadelphia middle schools. Using U.S. census data, school district data, police department data, and school climate survey data obtained from the administration of the Effective School Battery to 7, 583 students in 11 middle schools, we examined the following predictors of student misconduct: community poverty and residential stability; community crime; school size; student perceptions of school climate (school attachment); and individual student characteristics (e.g., age, race, sex, school involvement and effort, belief in rules, positive peer associations). “Community” was conceptualized in two ways: “local” (the census tract around the school), and “imported” (aggregated measures from the census tracts where students actually lived). We used hierarchical linear modeling techniques (HLM) to examine between- and within-school factors. Individual-level factors accounted for 16% of the explained variance; school and community-level factors (both local and imported) added only small increments (an additional 4.1–4.5%). We conclude that simplistic assumptions that “bad” communities typically produce “bad” children or “bad” schools are unwarranted.     

EXPLAINING THE GENDER DIFFERENCE IN ADOLESCENT DELINQUENT BEHAVIOR: A LONGITUDINAL TEST OF MEDIATING MECHANISMS*

The extent to which mediating mechanisms account for the gender difference in delinquency was tested on a sample of 2, 753 adolescents studied across three points in time. Results using structural equations modeling showed that males are more likely to be involved in delinquent activities, partly because they are less bound to conventional values, more likely to be associated with delinquent peers, and report more adverse experiences with the authorities. These effects remain after partialling out the stability effect of prior delinquency and other sociodemographidstructral variables. However, although males are more likely than females to report frustration in achievement, frustration in achievement does not directly affect subsequent delinquent behavior in a multivariate context. In addition, adolescent males and females tend to report similar patterns of delinquent activities, and the influences of mediating variables on delinquent outcome are generally similar for males and females.