Drawing from concepts in criminological literature and sociological life-course
perspective literature, data from adolescent and young adult measurements collected as
part of a longitudinal panel study conducted on a cohort from Harris County, Texas,
were used to estimate Structural Equation Models, testing the unmediated and mediated
relationships between adolescent deviance, early timing of transitions to adult roles, and
adult deviance. First, a simplified three latent variable model was estimated using the
full sample (N= 3,379) to examine direct associations among adolescent deviance, early
transitions to adulthood, and adult deviance while controlling for prior involvement in
deviant behavior in adolescence. An expanded seven latent variable model was then
estimated adding mechanisms in adolescence through which the relationships previously
observed in the simplified model are mediated. Lastly, both the simplified and expanded
models were estimated on eight subgroups in the sample to examine whether the
relationships observed for the full sample are moderated by gender, race/ethnicity,
paternal level of education, and expectations for future failure in conventional adolescent
roles. For the full sample, the simplified model produced significant direct relationshipsbetween adolescent deviance and early transitions to adulthood, and between early
transitions to adulthood and adult deviance. When this simplified model was estimated
on the eight subgroups, the first relationship remained stable for each of the eight
moderating subgroups, while the second relationship did not. When several intervening
variables were added between adolescent deviance and early transitions to adulthood in
the expanded model, the parameters added to the model using the intervening variables
formed a chain of significant direct relationships fully mediating the relationship
between adolescent deviance and early transitions to adulthood for the full sample. This
chain of significant direct relationships remained stable for five of the eight subgroups,
and the three subgroups that did not experience full mediation underwent great
attenuation of the relationship. These intervening variables offer avenues for altering the
trajectory of behavior seen in the simplified model.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/2391 |
| Date | 29 August 2005 |
| Creators | Halim, Shaheen |
| Contributors | Kaplan, Howard B. |
| Publisher | Texas A&M University |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | 706136 bytes, electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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