You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
This large Research Digest complements the issue theme with studies of youth crime, violence, delinquency, aggression, anti-social behaviour, dating violence, sexual risk-taking, sexual abuse, gang violence, gang pressure, parental violence … in other words, a broad spectrum of socially disturbing behaviour associated with adolescence, and with the effects of social and economic deprivation on adolescent development and outcomes. The research cited crosses disciplinary lines with studies originating in the fields of social science, social work, youth and adolescence studies, violence studies, addiction studies, group processes, and adolescent mental health. As the phenomenon of what might broadly be termed young people’s social alienation or exclusion, the subject appears to prompt study particularly by researchers in fields concerned with social rather than individual processes.
There are some biases in this selection, unintentionally brought about by the search terms used. Studies on the determinants of gang membership and gang violence concern boys, with one exception (De La Rue and Espelage, 2014). The majority of the articles cited are American, where, as the first abstract states, ‘Gang violence is a growing public health concern in the United States’ (Kelly et al., 2012). Violence is an over-riding research preoccupation, in particular, the attempt to study connections between violence in different domains of a young person’s life, i.e. in the street, at home, and in intimate partner relationships (Henneburger et al., 2013; Ebesutani, 2014; Slattery and Meyers, 2014; DuPont-Reyes, 2014; Narayan et al., 2015). Some studies concern protective factors, in particular, whether positive parenting, parental involvement or parental mediation, may mitigate social pressures towards aggression and crime (Henneburger, 2013; Collier et al., 2016), while others attempt to investigate the relationship between media violence and actual violence (Krahé, 2014; Breue