Seminar
Criminologists have utilized social capital within a number of theoretical approaches. The concept has been especially useful for explaining crime within neighborhoods using social disorganization theory. According to this approach, social capital enables residents to maintain low levels of crime in their neighborhood, in part, by giving them the ability to control local adolescents' behaviors. While much research has focused on the role of parental and adult social capital networks in controlling offending, relatively little is known about the way adolescent social capital forms and affects delinquency. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), I fill this gap in the literature by first examining how social capital is transmitted from parents to their children. Following this investigation, I relate adolescent social capital, both in school and in the neighborhood, to violent and property offending. Results suggest that adolescent social capital is transmitted from parents to their children. Nevertheless, adolescent social capital acts independently of parental social capital in controlling offending. The relative effect of adolescent social capital on delinquency appears to depend on the context in which it occurs.