School variation in offending: A macro-level strain approach
| Author | Julia Sandahl |
| DOI | 10.1177/1477370818819729 |
| Published date | 01 November 2020 |
| Date | 01 November 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370818819729
European Journal of Criminology
2020, Vol. 17(6) 701 –722
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1477370818819729
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School variation in
offending: A macro-level
strain approach
Julia Sandahl
Department of Criminology, Stockholm University, Sweden
Abstract
This study employs Macro-level Strain Theory (MST) as a framework to provide a better
understanding of the way in which the structural and social context of Stockholm schools covaries
with self-reported violent and general offending. The findings contribute to the literature in this
area by directing a special focus at the interplay between the theory’s macro-level components
and some individual-level mechanisms that may be assumed to condition the effect of strain
on offending. Using multi-level data on 4789 students nested in 82 schools (violent offending)
and 4643 students nested in 83 schools (general offending) in the City of Stockholm, the study
notes significant contextual effects of anger, meaninglessness and life dissatisfaction on offending.
School-level deprivation appears to have a confounding effect on the relationship between
school-contextual negative affect and offending. Further, school-contextual anger influences some
individuals more than others. Implications of these findings are discussed.
Keywords
Delinquency, deprivation, MST, multi-level analysis, school context, strain
Introduction
This study analyses the variance in crime between schools from a contextual strain per-
spective applied in Stockholm. Since the millennium, Western criminology has been
characterized by a focus on individual-level explanatory models, a trend that in a number
of countries, Sweden included, has occurred in parallel with increases both in levels of
inequality and in social differences between groups of individuals (Nilsson et al., 2016).
According to Hagan and Rymond-Richmond (2013), recent years have witnessed some-
thing of a re-emergence of the status ascribed to the contextual, urban sociological
perspective, among other things thanks to Sampson’s (2012) comprehensive analyses of
Corresponding author:
Julia Sandahl, Department of Criminology, Stockholm University, Universtitetsvägen 10 C, Stockholm, 106
91, Sweden.
Email: julia.sandahl@criminology.su.se
819729EUC0010.1177/1477370818819729European Journal of CriminologySandahl
research-article2018
Article
702 European Journal of Criminology 17(6)
Chicago’s residential neighbourhoods. Contemporary analyses employing contextual
approaches are thus often dominated by neighbourhood-focused analyses based on either
social disorganization theory (Shaw and McKay, 1942; Welsh et al., 2000) or more recent
versions of this theory, such as the theory of collective efficacy (Sampson, 2012). This
approach primarily examines variations in crime between social units in terms of infor-
mal social control and social trust (Brezina et al., 2001; Felson et al., 1994). Another
theoretical perspective that also allows for the combination of micro- and macro-level
mechanisms, but which has been the focus of less empirical research, is Agnew’s (1999)
contextual version of General Strain Theory (GST), more commonly known in the litera-
ture as Macro-level Strain Theory (MST).
During recent decades, the variation between Swedish schools in students’ educa-
tional achievements has increased (Yang Hansen and Gustafsson, 2016), and this varia-
tion is now considerably greater than in comparable European countries (OECD, 2016).
The degree to which crime is concentrated in certain places is assumed to increase with
increased levels of segregation (Desmond and Kubrin, 2009; Sampson, 2012), which
makes it particularly interesting to study the metropolitan school context in Sweden.
Based on the social disorganization perspective, an increase in the geographical concen-
tration of crime may be understood as the result of reduced informal control and reduced
social trust (Sampson, 2012). The contextual strain perspective introduces a cultural
dimension, which emphasizes extending our understanding of how the social context
may produce a culture of motivation for criminal acts (Agnew, 1999). According to
MST, variations in crime between schools may be partially explained by the mean level
of negative affect within the student population, inter alia because there is a high proba-
bility that angry and frustrated students will tend to be concentrated in socially disadvan-
taged environments (Agnew, 1999). Adopting the MST perspective thus provides an
opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of how structural and social variables at
the group level exert an influence on variations in crime. This is important, in part
because it increases our theoretical understanding of the interaction between the context
and the individual, but also because it may have implications for policy. For example, it
draws attention to the social density of strained individuals and to the fact that this may
vary from one school context to another. Thus on the basis of an MST framework, the
overarching objective of the current study is to examine the impact of school-level strain
(negative affect and deprivation) on offending.
School context vs neighbourhood context in Stockholm
MST was primarily developed to account for differences in crime between residential
neighbourhoods. European studies have produced varying findings regarding neighbour-
hood effects on crime, however, and some have questioned the significance of the neigh-
bourhood for differences in crime (Gerell, 2014; Op de Beeck et al., 2012; Pauwels,
2010). Results showing that neighbourhood effects are weak may be due to the fact that
the units of analysis employed at the neighbourhood level are often of a relatively hetero-
geneous nature, thus equalizing neighbourhood characteristics within each of the neigh-
bourhoods examined. Agnew (1999) has therefore argued that MST might be most
appropriate for analyses of data based on smaller social units, such as schools.
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