Schools and neighborhoods: Moderating the counter-delinquency effect of school belonging with perceived collective efficacy
| Author | Glenn D Walters |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/26338076221110253 |
| Published date | 01 September 2022 |
| Date | 01 September 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Schools and neighborhoods:
Moderating the counter-
delinquency effect of school
belonging with perceived
collective efficacy
Glenn D Walters
Criminal Justice, Kutztown University, Kutztown, PA, USA
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine whether perceived collective efficacy moderated
the prospective relationship between school belonging and delinquency. Analyses were per-
formed on a sample of 4048 youth (2020 boys, 1936 girls) from the Longitudinal Study of
Australian Children (LSAC-K). Linear and negative binomial regression analyses performed
with maximum likelihood (ML) and maximum likelihood with robust standard errors (MLR)
estimators produced consistent results. Bootstrapped and normal theory analyses disclosed
a significant interaction between school belonging and collective efficacy after age, sex, indi-
genous status, physical condition of dwelling, physical condition of surrounding housing,
household income, weak parental monitoring, perceived peer delinquency, and prior delin-
quency were controlled. Further review of the significant interactive effect revealed that
the increased levels of school belonging predicted decreased levels of future delinquency,
but only when perceived collective efficacy was also elevated. These results support the pres-
ence of a small but significant conditional promotive effect.
Keywords
Neighborhood collective efficacy, school belonging, delinquency, moderation, Australian
schoolchildren
Date received: 2 December 2021; accepted: 6 June 2022
Corresponding author:
Glenn D Walters, Criminal Justice, Kutztown University, 361 Old Main, Kutztown, PA 19530, USA.
Email: walters@kutztown.edu
Article
Journal of Criminology
2022, Vol. 55(3) 306–321
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/26338076221110253
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Although there is a great deal of research on risk factors for delinquency and crime (Bonta &
Andrews, 2017), we know much less about protective and promotive factors. The situation is
further complicated by the fact that researchers often confuse protective and promotive factors.
According to Farrington et al. (2016), risk factors predict an increased rate of offending,
whereas protective factors interact with risk factors to predict a decreased rate of offending.
Protective factors serve to weaken or nullify the positive relationship that exists between a
risk factor and offending behavior. Promotive factors, by contrast, predict a decreased rate
of offending without interacting with a risk factor. Farrington et al. acknowledge that risk, pro-
tective, and promotive effects are not always causal and that promotive effects are frequently,
though not always, the opposite end of a risk effect, depending on whether the relationship is
linear or nonlinear. Hence, all three factors and their relationships need to be taken into account
when predicting behavior. We already know that risk and protective factors interact to protect
against delinquency; the purpose of the current investigation was to determine whether two
promotive factors—parent-rated neighborhood collective efficacy and child-rated school
belonging—combine to promote nondelinquency.
Neighborhood disorganization
Neighborhood disorganization was first identified as a putative risk factor and potential cause
of delinquency in research conducted by members of the Chicago school of criminology (Park
et al., 1925; Shaw & McKay, 1942). These ideas were then elaborated on by other researchers
who introduced such critical theoretical concepts as social capital (Coleman, 1988), informal
social control (Ross & Jang, 2000), and collective efficacy (Sampson et al., 1997) into the
neighborhood ecological literature. Research has demonstrated that neighborhoods with stron-
ger amounts of social capital, informal social control, and collective efficacy experience lower
rates of criminal victimization than neighborhoods with weaker amounts of social capital,
informal social control, and collective efficacy (Bellair, 2000; Hipp, 2016; Takagi et al.,
2012). Neighborhood criminal victimization is the result of negative influences originating
from outside the neighborhood, primarily in the form of infiltrative nonresident criminal
acts, and negative influences originating from within the neighborhood, primarily in the
form of local youth crime. Although research supports the value of neighborhood unity,
control, and observation in preventing negative influences from infiltrating into a neighborhood
(Brown & Weil, 2020; Sampson et al., 2002), it is less clear if and how these factors lead to
reduced criminality in neighborhood youth.
In extending neighborhood disorganization theory to local youth, it may be helpful to con-
ceptualize neighborhood disorganization as a risk factor and neighborhood solidarity and cohe-
sion as protective or promotive factors. Walters (2022) tested neighborhood social capital and
nonverbal intelligence as protective factors in children with a history of early conduct disorder.
Results showed that while nonverbal intelligence interacted with early conduct disorder to
reduce the level of subsequent delinquency, neighborhood social capital did not.
Consequently, the results of this study suggest that while nonverbal intelligence may serve
as a protective factor vis-à-vis early conduct disorder, neighborhood social capital displayed
no such effect. There is evidence, however, that positive neighborhood influences may serve
as promotive factors. Neighborhood cohesion, as reported by a group of early adolescents,
was found to correlate with lower levels of delinquency, although it failed to interact with a
risk factor (i.e. exposure to violence), in a study by Chen et al. (2016), and a positive
Walters 307
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