Changing contexts: A quasi-experiment examining adolescent delinquency and the transition to high school.

In a quasi-experiment, we examine whether changing schools during the transition from 8th to 9th grade influences adolescent delinquency, using a sample of more than 14,000 students in 26 public school districts (PROSPER study). The dataset follows students for eight waves from 6th through 12th grade and facilitates a unique, direct comparison of students who change schools with those who remain in the same school during this period. Results show that students who transition between schools report significantly less delinquency after the shift than those who do not, and that this difference persists through 10th grade. This decline is most pronounced when adolescents from multiple middle schools move to a single high school (i.e., multifeeder transitions). Students who transition between schools have fewer delinquent friends and participate in less unstructured socializing following the change in school environment, which partially mediates their reduced delinquency. Results provide some support for theories of differential association and routine activities. Our findings highlight the role of a crucial, yet understudied, life transition in shaping adolescent delinquency. The results from this quasi-experiment underscore the potential of alterations in social context to significantly dampen juvenile delinquency throughout high school.

UNCERTAIN ADOLESCENT EDUCATIONAL EXPECTATIONS AND COLLEGE MATRICULATION IN THE WAKE OF THE GREAT RECESSION.

Though contemporary adolescents in the United States have ambitious educational goals, a sizable number of youth express uncertainty about their future educational attainment. Using data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (n=17,340), we investigate whether uncertainty in educational expectations in adolescence is associated with college matriculation and dropout. Approximately 21% of youth expressed uncertainty about their future educational attainment, and the odds of attending college were lower among uncertain teens compared to youth who expected at least 4-year degrees. Among college matriculants, however, uncertain expectations in adolescence did not increase the risk of early college dropout.

Network spillovers and neighborhood crime: A computational statistics analysis of employment-based networks of neighborhoods.

Research on communities and crime has predominantly focused on social conditions within an area or in its immediate proximity. However, a growing body of research shows that people often travel to areas away from home, contributing to connections between places. A few studies highlight the criminological implications of such connections, focusing on important but rare ties like co-offending or gang conflicts. The current study extends this idea by analyzing more common ties based on commuting across Chicago communities. It integrates standard criminological methods with machine learning and computational statistics approaches to investigate the extent to which neighborhood crime depends on the disadvantage of areas connected to it through commuting. The findings suggest that connected communities can influence each other from a distance and that connectivity to less disadvantaged work hubs may decrease local crime-with implications for advancing knowledge on the relational ecology of crime, social isolation, and ecological networks.