The Unique and Interactive Effects of Parent and School Bonds on Adolescent Delinquency

Background and Purpose: Substantial evidence exists for the protective benefits of parent and school bonding in preventing negative youth behavior, such as delinquency. Yet, two key gaps in the literature remain. First, parent and school bonds are frequently studied in isolation. Little is known about their unique influences on youth outcomes, and which one is the stronger predictor of youth outcomes during the middle school period. Second, few studies examine the interaction between school and parent bonds on youth outcomes. The tendency to focus on either parent or school bonding as the key protective factor may fail to capture a critical interplay between the home and school domains on youth behavior. It is possible that one of these factors compensates for the other in preventing negative outcomes, such as delinquency. For example, when youth do not have close relationships with their parents, school bonding may play a compensatory role. School relationships may be more strongly linked to youth delinquency when parental bonds are low.

This study aimed to fill these gaps in the literature by examining (1) how parent and school bonds compare to each other in terms of their unique influence on negative outcomes and (2) how these bonds interact in their effect on adolescent behavior.

Methods: This study used data from the PROSPER Project (PROmoting School-community-university Partnerships to Enhance Resilience), a longitudinal, randomized study of substance-use preventive interventions and their diffusion into rural communities. The study used a subsample of 980 adolescents that participated in in-home interviews. Data were collected over four waves, in the spring semesters of 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th grade. Multilevel modeling (MLM) was used to test the relationship between parent affective quality and school bonding on adolescents’ delinquent behavior. In a second model, a parent affective quality and school bonding interaction term was added. All analyses were conducted from wave-to-wave to detect critical periods of importance for parent and school bonds.

Results: Results indicated that both school and parent bonding were significant predictors of delinquency between all waves. Youth who had closer relationships with their parents and with their schools engaged in lower levels of delinquency across the middle school period. School relationships were particularly important during the middle school transition (from 6th-7th grade). In 6th grade only, school bonding was more strongly linked to delinquency than parent bonds. Further, a significant interaction occurred, suggesting that the linkages between school bonding and delinquency may differ based on parent bonds.

Conclusions and Implications: Our findings support prior evidence that both parent and school bonds play a role in reducing adolescents’ delinquent behaviors. By comparing these two factors, we found that there may be a critical time point between the transition from 6th to 7th grade when school bonding may become particularly important in affecting youth behavior. This study demonstrates a dynamicity to how adolescents benefit from bonds with significant adult figures and provides insight into how such bonds may be leveraged for positive youth development.