EVALUATING TWO MODELS OF DELINQUENCY CAUSATION Structural Theory and Control Theory

Research on delinquency involvement has often employed structural or control theories to account for such behavior. Structural models typically have been applied to lower-class delinquency, control models to explanotions of middle-class juvenile miscanduct. Much of the inconclusiveness and many of the controdictions in the delinquency literature are arguably the result of this focus on either lower-class or middle-class adolescents employing a single conceptual orientation. Such a restrictive focus has produced narrow, class-specific explanotions of delinquency involvement which obscure probable similarities in etiological processes at varying socioeconomic locations in the society. The intent of this research is to test the predictive utility of central aspects of bath the structural and control models across a wide range of social status positions. Self-report data obtained from o representative sample of 412 male high school students in a mid-western SMSA indicate that (1) bath structural and control theory serve to explain significant. though small. proportions of the variance in delinquency; (2) the control model variables account for the mast unique variation in delinquency involvement; and (3) the combined effects of the two models account for more variance than either of the models taken separately.