RESEARCH ARTICLE


Trajectories of Parenting Styles and Delinquency: An Examination Using a Sample of African-Americans



Anthony Smith1, Emma Leigh E. Kirchner1, George E. Higgins*, 2, Dave Khey3
1 University of Louisville, USA
2 Department of Justice Administration, 208 Brigman Hall, 2301 South Third Street, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, USA
3 Loyola University New Orleans

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2011
Volume: 4
First Page: 46
Last Page: 53
Publisher Id: TOFAMSJ-4-46
DOI: 10.2174/1874922401104010046

Article History:

Received Date: 19/4/2011
Revision Received Date: 4/5/2011
Acceptance Date: 5/5/2011
Electronic publication date: 14/10/2011
Collection year: 2011

© 2011 Smith et al;

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Justice Administration, 208 Brigman Hall, 2301 South Third Street, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, USA; Tel: (502) 852-0331; E-mail: gehigg01@gwise.louisville.edu


Abstract

The development of parenting style typologies has led to a number of studies that have linked them to delinquency. Although a number of studies have shown that parenting style typologies have a link with delinquency, studies have not shown whether there were distinct trajectories of parenting styles and delinquency. These studies have not considered this in a sample of only African-Americans. Using data from the NLSY97 that only contains 725 African- Americans, our results show that three distinct trajectory groups of parenting styles are present for residential mothers and for residential fathers. In addition, we show that three distinct trajectory groups of delinquency are present. Our results show that a joint analysis of the intersection of these trajectories does not clarify the links between parenting styles and delinquency over time. Implications and directions for future research are highlighted.

Keywords: Parenting Styles, Delinquency, Trajectories, African-Americans.