A Gendered Theory of Delinquency and Despair in the ... - CiteSeerX

ACTA SOCIOLOGICA 2002

A Gendered Theory of Delinquency and Despair in the Life Course John Hagan1, Bill McCarthy2 and Holly Foster3 1

Northwestern University, American Bar Foundation, Evanston, Illinois, University of California at Davis, CA and 3 Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA 2

ABSTRACT The paper pays particular attention to gender- and age-linked differences in forms of indirect, relational and direct, physical forms of delinquent aggression, as well as to sequential links of these forms of delinquent aggression to depression and drug and alcohol abuse. A power-control theory of the gender–delinquenc y relationship that draws attention to differences in familial control practices is then linked to these variations in the expression of delinquenc y and despair. We extend the focus of power-control theory to address how parental agency and support for dominant attitudes or schemas influence involvement in different forms of delinquenc y and despair. This extension emphasizes that differences in structure, particularly between more and less patriarchal households, result in degrees of difference and of kind in non-normative outcomes. The paper concludes with a call for increased diversity in the measurement of delinquency and despair and for the development of opposite-sex sibling samples to explore gender- and age-linked differences in non-normative phenomena.

John Hagan, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University, 1810 Chicago Avanue, Evanston, Illinois, USA Ó Scandinavian Sociological Association 2002 1. Introduction Delinquency is characteristically gendered and also emotional. Thus delinquency often takes different forms among males and females, even though among both genders it is frequently an expression of anger and leads to despair. Yet we know less than we should about the relationship of gender to the emotions of delinquency and its consequences. This paper proposes a gendered power-control theory that links delinquency to subsequent expressions of despair in the transition from adolescence to adulthood. The transitional process we will emphasize moves from childhood and early adolescent anger, through middle adolescent delinquency, to later adolescent expressions of distress. The intervening forms of delinquency often involve direct, physical forms of aggression among males and indirect, relational kinds of aggression among females, while the latter expressions of distress

notably include depression among females and drinking among males. Meanwhile, the sequence of delinquency and despair may often lead to adult disadvantage for both males and females. So this paper is ultimately about adult disadvantage as well as about delinquency and despair, and the ways in which sequences of delinquency and despair are structured by gender. Delinquency is increasingly understood in criminological theory as a mediating stage in the life course. This paper takes the further step of suggesting that delinquency is part of a stress process that is structured by gender and that may have important implications for success and failure in adulthood. Pearlin and colleagues’ (1981) classic stress process model examines the effects of structured stressors on mental health outcomes. Delinquency can be considered an interim adaptation to stress from this perspective. Delinquency is therefore con-

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sidered as a response to stressful states in some contemporary strain theories of delinquency (see Agnew 1992 and below). This paper argues that it may also be important from this perspective to see delinquency itself as a stressor embedded in a chain of emotions linked to subsequent emotional and behavioral outcomes that extend through adulthood. These possibilities have signi cant implications for the ways in which we design longitudinal studies of the transition to adulthood. 2. The emotional lives of delinquents The concepts of adolescence and delinquency are by de nition developmental and inherently linked to ideas about the life course. In this sense, delinquency is a developmental stage or phase in a longer chain of life events and experiences. However, while the conceptual role of the life course in delinquency theory was implicit through much of the history of this eld, it is only relatively recently that the life course perspective has become an explicit orienting feature of delinquency research (e.g. Sampson & Laub 1997; Thornberry 1997; Hagan & Palloni 1988; Piquero & Mazerolle 2000). A result is that while there is a growing interdisciplinary body of research on the progression of delinquency involvement (e.g. Loeber & Hay 1997) and substance use (e.g. Kandel et al. 1992), there are relatively few studies that locate and isolate delinquency as a distinct phase or stage that typically occurs in middle to later adolescence as part of a longer term chain that leads to later problems in adulthood (but see Maughan & Rutter 2001:533–534). Nor is much attention paid to how this chain takes gender-speci c forms as it unfolds. Adolescence is classically understood in sociological theories as a formative emotional period, with delinquency seen as an expression of adolescent emotions, often including frustration and anger, that collectively can express agegraded subcultural responses to the demands of a demanding and dominant adult culture. The emotional quality of this adolescent response is captured in Cohen’s (1955:25) early description of a delinquent subculture that is non-utilitarian, malicious and negativistic. Cohen (28) memorably depicted the emotional content of much delinquency when he observed that ‘there is an element of active spite and malice, contempt and ridicule, challenge and de ance, exquisitely symbolized, in an incident described

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to the writer by Mr. Henry D. McKay, of defecating on the teacher’s desk.’ The role of teachers and schools as a source of distress as well as a symbolically salient target of rebellion for potential delinquents is a durable theme in delinquency theory and research (from Stinchcombe 1964 to Hagan & Parker 1999). Cohen (1955) made the male focus of his work explicit by titling his classic book Delinquent Boys. Cohen was most interested in this book in explaining direct and physical forms of aggression that are more common among boys than girls. Recent work emphasizes that girls may often express their aggression in less direct and physical ways than boys (Crick & Grotpeter 1995). While males value instrumentality and physical dominance, girls are more relational, valuing intimate connections with others. Their aggression is therefore more often indirect and may impose relational harm (Crick et al. 1996). These expressions of aggression may take the forms of rejection and exclusion of others, for example, through collusion, rumors and gossip, and this behavior can have unfolding consequences, as the following account by Anderson (1997:26) suggests in his description of the ‘code of the streets’ involving African–American teenage girls: A major cause of conflicts among girls is ‘he say, she say’. This practice begins in the early school years and continues through high school. It occurs when ‘people’, particularly girls, talk about others, thus putting their ‘business in the streets’. Usually one girl will say something negative about another in the group, most often behind the person’s back. The remarks will then get back to the person talked about. She may retaliate or her friends may feel required to ‘take up for’ her. In essence, this is a form of group gossiping, the things said may or may not be true, but the point is such imputations can cast aspersions on a person’s good name. The accused is required to defend herself against the slander, which can result in arguments and fights, often over little of real substance.

The point is that aggressive emotions are female as well as male, and that in both cases there are consequences, often involving delinquent behavior. Classical sociological theories of delinquency have sometimes considered a relatively wide range of emotions to which delinquency is linked. For example, in addition to describing participation in stable criminal and delinquent con ict subcultures, Cloward and Ohlin (1960) describe involvements in a retreatist subculture.

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Cloward and Ohlin draw attention in this latter part of their theory to problems faced in ‘sequences of adaptation’ by older delinquents during the later years of adolescence. They write (184) that ‘illegitimate avenues to higher status that were available during early adolescence become more restricted in later adolescence. These new limitations intensify frustration and so create pressures toward withdrawal or retreatist reactions.’ Although Cloward and Ohlin do not describe in detail the emotions of these delinquents, they clearly see them as distressed if not depressed, with these emotions expressed most notably in drinking and drug abuse. Their sequential analysis is grounded in assumptions about the life course and the transition to adulthood, and their implication is that many if not most delinquents wind up in emotional distress, with male delinquents in particular using drinking and drugs to dull the pain and escape their despair. Females may more frequently express their despair in what are often regarded as more feminine ways, for example, with internalized symptoms of depression. Agnew’s (1985, 1992) general strain theory (GST) is a modern descendant of the above delinquency theories, which in the case of Cohen can be traced even further back to Parsons (e.g. 1947) and in the case of Cloward and Ohlin to Merton (e.g. 1957). Agnew emphasizes the role of emotion in his revision and elaboration of these theories. Although Agnew abstractly identi es his theory’s orienting concept as strain, he is more speci cally concerned with aggressiveness and anger and their resulting tendencies among delinquents. ‘Their greater tendency to blame adversity on others’, Agnew (1997:109) indicates, ‘increases the likelihood that they will react with anger. And this anger, in combination with their limited problem-solving skills, increases the likelihood that they will respond with delinquency.’ Again, there is a sequential framework that underwrites this theory, for Agnew argues that angry, aggressive delinquency has an amplifying effect that builds from childhood through adolescence and the reactions this delinquency provokes from others: ... such individuals may be more likely to turn to delinquenc y at an early age. This delinquency may then contribute to a further increase in strain. The delinquent acts of the individual, in particular, are likely to anger others and result in negative treatment by such others. Individuals may be negatively treated by the victims of their

delinquenc y, by parents and others responsible for their behavior, and by others who feel threatened by or upset with their behavior – such as neighbors and peers. (111–112)

Agnew’s theory persuasively describes links between angry emotions and aggressive delinquency, and further identi es the delinquent expression of anger as a subsequent source of distress. Broidy (2001) extends this theory by exploring gendered pathways that lead to delinquency, although she does not explore its variable expression and consequences. Even if female delinquency is less common, its consequences may be equal if not greater, for example, when females are sanctioned more severely for challenging approved female role models with their aggressive behavior. The challenge is to specify how this sequence subsequently unfolds among both males and females, where it leads beyond delinquent behavior, and how this might vary by gender.

3. The ethnography of delinquent emotions Ethnographic research provides further evidence that ‘life after delinquency’ is characterized by emotional distress. Often this work makes this point while simultaneously and ironically noting that delinquents and young adult offenders seem to take joy in their pursuits. The apparent satisfactions of crime and delinquency are depicted most convincingly in Katz’s (1988) book The Seductions of Crime and especially in his description of the ‘magic in motivation’. Katz argues that this emotion is experienced during the thefts by female shoplifters as well as during the crime sprees of armed robbers. Yet Wright and Decker (1997:35) also nd in their sample of Armed Robbers in Action that ‘something far more serious was at stake’. Among their armed robbers there was ‘ ... a growing sense of frustration and anger because they felt themselves to be locked into a cycle of events that was leading nowhere’ (36). Shoplifting presumably also is motivated by negative as well as positive emotions. These con icting depictions of joyful and despondent offenders may seem a contradiction until later stages of the delinquent career are given more concentrated attention. This kind of detailed analysis is found in the geographically disparate but ethnographically and concep-


tually connected British and American works of Willis and Sullivan. Willis (1977) explored the ways in which the ‘lads’ he studied in a working-class English community learned to have a ‘laff ’ while Learning to Labor. As these youth discovered that school was not a promising means of making it economically, Willis observed that the lads turned their energy and wit to ‘having a laff ’ by nding various ways to defy school culture and authority. The key point Willis makes is that the youth he studied accurately see through the mobility myths of their surrounding middleclass society and through their delinquency achieve a rebelliously satisfying ‘partial penetration’ of their circumstances. A result, Willis (1977:107) writes, is that ‘for a speci c period in their lives “the lads” believe that they dwell in towers where grief can never come’. However, the reference to this ‘speci c period’ is conspicuously transitory, and with time Willis observes that the fun and excitement gives way to an impending despair grounded in the looming reality of the bleak socioeconomic fates awaiting the lads in adulthood. Willis makes it clear in the afterword to his book that he regards his ndings as having wider application to ‘cultural forms’ that include youth who are affected more broadly by the changing circumstances of the global economy, notably including girls as well as boys and North American as well as European youth, although he does not consider how these expressions may vary by gender and place. More than a decade later in three New York City neighborhoods, Sullivan (1989) con rms that the youth he studied also temporarily have a sense of achieving a ‘penetration of their condition’. However, like Willis, Sullivan also nds that ‘over time, this penetration becomes a limitation, binding them back into [the social] structure as they age out of youth crime and accept ... low wage, unstable jobs’ (250). So the approaching end of adolescence and the discouraging prospects of adulthood are a likely explanation of the transition from the passing pleasures of delinquent rebellion to a despair that emerges in anticipation of adult disadvantage. Yet while this process is well described and explained in the above work, it has not been well developed in relation to female delinquency (but see Chesney-Lind & Shelden 1992), and it has proven elusive in quantitative studies. Indeed, the stress process we have described is in need of further study among both males and females, and in broadly based

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longitudinal panel research, which we suggest next (in the context of delinquency research) may have been limited by a search for generic patterns and by a failure to consider carefully the sequential implications of the role of gender in processes that lead from delinquency to retreatist behavior involving excessive drinking. 4. The gendered and the generic Although there is an increasing amount of quantitative work on the linkage between depression and conduct disorder (e.g. Capaldi 1992; Fergusson et al. 1996), as de ned by the DSM-III-R and DSM-IV criteria (American Psychiatric Association 1987, 1994), quantitative studies of the linkage between emotions and scales of the more explicitly antisocial and rebellious forms of adolescent delinquency are surprisingly rare. Two recent studies, the rst based on Boston high-school students by Aseltine et al. (2000) and the second on college students at a northwestern university by Broidy (2001), give simultaneous quantitative attention to anger, delinquency and other negative emotions. Both studies nd links between anger and delinquency, but Aseltine et al. (2000:261) nd no relationship between delinquency and depressive symptoms and Broidy (2001:27) reports an unexpected negative relationship with a more broadly measured scale of negative emotions. Broidy (2001: see footnotes 7 and 8) observes that the meaning of the latter relationship is complicated by the strong correlation between her measures of anger and other negative emotions. Meanwhile, like Aseltine, an earlier Toronto-based study by Hagan (1997) reports no signi cant contemporaneous correlation between delinquency and depression in adolescence, but does reveal a ‘sleeper effect’ of delinquency on feelings of despair nearly 20 years later, after experiences with unemployment in early middle adulthood. However, the length of the time lag in the latter study, and its identi cation of depression in a cohort that experienced adolescence more than 30 years ago, leaves considerable uncertainty about the longitudinal process involved. This uncertainty about the sequence and direction of the relationship between depression and delinquency is paralleled in the larger body of literature on the broader concept of conduct disorder and depression. For example, while Fergusson et al. (1996) nd limited support for a


causal relationship in either direction between conduct disorder and depression, Rutter (1991; see also Rutter et al. 1997) nds that individuals with conduct disorder and no emotional disturbance in childhood have an increased rate of anxiety and depressive symptoms at the age of 23. Angold and Costello’s (2001) recent review of research on conduct disorder and depression concludes that further research is needed to untangle the causal processes that are likely to link conduct disorder and depression, while Rutter (2001:565–566) offers this conclusion: The empirical research findings seem to suggest that the association works in only one direction. That is, the presence of depressive symptomatology in childhood or adolescence involves no increased risk for antisocial behavior in later adolescence or early adult life. On the other hand, antisocial behavior in childhood does involve an increased risk for depressive symptoms in early adult life (Rutter 1991; Rutter et al. 1997). Moreover, it seems that this is not simply a function of a pre-existing co-occurrence between antisocial behavior and depression in childhood. The increased risk is evident from antisocial behavior in childhood even when that was not accompanied by identifiable emotional disturbance at the time. The possible mechanisms involved in this association have been little investigated up to now. It is quite possible that the answer lies in the tendency for antisocial individuals to act in ways that generate interpersonal stresses and create disadvantageous psychosocial situations – a tendency first well demonstrated by Robbins (1966) and confirmed in longitudinal studies undertaken since that time (Champion et al. 1995).

Rutter’s speculation ts well with the sequential stress process model proposed in this paper. We believe that the dearth of quantitative research and the uncertainty of the ndings on the emotions of delinquency result in part from problems of conceptualization and measurement of the emotional lives of adolescents. Aseltine et al. (2000:271) suggest a useful starting point for respeci cation when they draw on the mental health literature and the work of Aneshensel et al. (1991) to note that delinquent behavior can be embedded in stress processes that vary in socially structured ways. Aneshensel et al. (1991:176) make this point by insisting, in a study that emphasizes gender differences in depression and problem drinking, that ‘stress research that focuses on a single disorder fails to portray accurately social variation in stress processes and mental health

outcomes’. Stress processes involve sequences of emotions and they may often be manifested in multiple stress disorders, with differentiation by gender. Thus Aneshensel’s work (see also Aneshensel & Gore 1991) makes the crucial point that males and females both respond to stress, but that they often do so in different ways. This line of thought is likely to be connected to the earlier discussion of differences in aggression by gender, with females more involved in indirect and relational aggression, and males more inclined towards direct and physical aggression. In a parallel way, Aneschensel and Gore suggest that women often express their distress with negative affect, while men more often respond with substance abuse. Rosen eld (1999:212) draws on a power-control theory of gender and delinquency (Hagan et al. 1987) to help to explain origins of gender differences in such non-normative feelings and behavior in childhood. The remainder of this paper further explores how power-control may be of help in explaining gender differences in sequences of delinquency and despair. 5. Power-control theory Power-control theory began as an attempt to explain why males are much more involved than females in common forms of delinquency (Hagan et al., 1979). It focuses on the reproduction of gender relations across generations of parents and children in patriarchal family structures, emphasizing that this reproduction perpetuates males’ greater involvement in common forms of delinquency. The theory’s name evokes images of male dominance that operate through power and control, and its emphasis on patriarchal family structure and risk taking directs attention to male preoccupations and pursuits. Indeed, the most in uential statement of the theory cites as exemplars the indiscretions of the ‘young Kennedys’, which seem overwhelmingly to involve the males of this family (Hagan et al., 1987). The theory was developed to explain gender differences in common delinquency, but we suggest that it may also account for gender differences in forms of aggression. Informed by feminist contributions, powercontrol theory maintains that gender more broadly structures workplace experiences. Thus, all else held constant (e.g. educational and cultural backgrounds), women typically


have been allocated fewer positions of ownership and authority than men. Power-control theory acknowledges the complex interrelationships between gender-power and class-power, particularly in Western capitalist societies, and recognizes that each reinforces the other (see similarly Messerschmidt, 1986, 1993); however, this theory maintains that ownership and authority relationships outside the home, particularly those in the workplace, in uence the gender division of parental power and practices within families. Further, power-control theory argues that although females and males are exposed to gender-strati ed family practices during their childhood, their encounters with class and gender strati cation in the workplace can exert an even stronger in uence on the patterned relationships they establish in the families they form in adulthood. Thus powercontrol theory maintains that the engendered maintenance of social roles in families is built around the relative resources available to mothers and fathers where they work. In patriarchal families, men have higher class positions in the workplace than their spouses; this imbalance provides fathers with greater resources, particularly power, and increases their ability to establish and reproduce structures of male dominance at home. Sewell (1992:10) points to the role of human agency in family relationships, noting that ‘part of what it means to conceive of human beings as agents is to conceive of them as empowered by access to resources of one kind or another’. As structural agents, patriarchal fathers’ greater access to resources empowers them, enabling them to enlist mothers in reproducing the engendered schemas of patriarchal family life. These schemas are re ected in many ways, including through their expression in delinquency and despair. As males and females move out of childhood and closer to the work roles of adulthood, their non-normative emotions and behaviors become increasingly disparate. Thus there are few apparent gender differences in early feelings of anger, increased variation in forms of late childhood and early adolescent aggression, and clear differentiation in late adolescent and early adult depression and drinking. Patriarchal families have dominated contemporary Western industrial societies; they have been the most common type of family and have been supported by other structures (e.g. schooling) that have in the past promoted patriarchy. However, since the early 1970s

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several factors have signaled a change towards more balanced, or less patriarchal households; these include the rapid growth in women’s involvement in the labor force (particularly in high-status occupations) and postsecondary education; women’s greater economic power; liberalization of family and divorce law; the proliferation of feminist attitudes; and changes in institutions and institutional practices that re ect a feminist perspective. This may have implications for gender differences in aggression and despair. Thus power-control theory predicts that the change in family structure to more balanced households has several implications for the socialization of sons and daughters. The theory recognizes the multifaceted nature of childrearing and child–parent relationships but focuses predominantly on parental agency as expressed in control practices. Extending the work of Gilligan (1982), this theory discusses two types of control: relational and instrumental. Relational control involves affective ties between parents and children and typically is expressed in af nity with and affection for one another. The emphasis of relational control on affective ties is more likely to encourage indirect than direct forms of aggression that work through attempts to manipulate interpersonal relationships. Similarly, the affective or emotional nature of relational controls may more often be linked to the emergence of internalized depressed feeling states than to externalized forms of drug and alcohol abuse. Instrumental control is a more explicit expression of agency, and focuses on parents’ involvement in supervision and surveillance practices that in uence children’s opportunities to engage in physical aggression and their awareness of parental interest in their activities, including drinking and drug use. Control practices differ across parents, genders and families. Compared with fathers, mothers are more active agents in controlling children and control their daughters more than their sons. These patterns are strongest in more patriarchal families and weaker in less patriarchal ones. So more patriarchal families should, according to this theory, more often channel their children by gender into differing patterns in which females are physically less aggressive and subsequently less disposed to drugs and drinking; females are more likely to be relationally aggressive and inclined to emotional despair. In contrast, power-control theory


predicts that the gendering of aggression into indirectly relational and directly physical forms will be less prominent in less patriarchal homes, as mothers and to some extent fathers make their control practices more gender equitable. Early work on the varying gender–delinquency relationship focused on maternal reductions in the control of daughters to levels more closely resembling those of sons; this work underemphasized that mothers may also exercise agency in making their control practices more equitable by increasing their control of sons (McCarthy & Hagan 1999). Thus, compared with mothers in more patriarchal families, those in less patriarchal homes may be less involved in directly supervising daughters; however, they may also intensify their control of sons, giving sons less freedom and more family responsibilities relative to sons in more patriarchal homes. The relational control of sons may also increase. This could lead sons to become more like daughters in their involvement in indirect aggression and feelings of depression. Although not central to previous discussions of power-control theory, it is clear that parental controls re ect gendered schemas or rules about children’s behaviors and parents’ agency in shaping these; these gendered schemas are most likely to create behavioral disparities when mothers and fathers use child-care practices that differ between sons and daughters. Meanwhile, power-control theory suggests, but has not developed the point, that schemas vary across family structures. In more patriarchal families, parents offer greater support for dominant schemas and encourage their children to adopt conventional notions about the gender speci city of certain activities; in contrast, parents, and particularly mothers, who live in less patriarchal households are more likely to question these views. A further difference is likely to occur across gender; that is, all else being equal, male children are more likely to support beliefs consistent with conventional patriarchy. Male approval, particularly in more patriarchal families, is encouraged by the greater bene ts and freedoms that genderedactivity schemas provide them (e.g. greater freedom in the public world), and by cultural and structural conditions that legitimize these schemas. In more balanced households, parental resources and agency may diminish this gender difference in support for patriarchal schemas. For example, mothers in less patriarchal families

may challenge dominant schemas about genders and gendered activities: they may as well increase their control of sons relative to daughters and encourage their sons to adopt views that contrast with dominant schemas. There may be less cross-family variation in attitudes among daughters; that is, daughters may be more alike in their attitudes towards gendered activities given their higher levels of control (relative to males), their greater exposure to more liberal views about gender in several areas of their lives (e.g. school or among friends) and the gender inequality that underlies gendered-activity schemas. The class and gender strati cation of familial control has implications for other attitudes, particularly those associated with risks. Given their positions of power, greater freedom from household restraints, and support for gendered-activity schemas, males in more patriarchal homes are more likely than females to interpret risk-taking as pleasurable and believe that they can avoid the negative consequences associated with risky pursuits involving physical aggression and drinking. This gender difference is probably smaller in less patriarchal families where different agency and control practices may heighten daughters’ risk preferences while lowering those of sons. To summarize, power-control theory predicts that involvement in minor as well as aggressive forms of delinquency increases with a preference for risks, a belief in impunity and support for dominant gendered-activity schemas, whereas it decreases with parental and particularly maternal control. These processes interact with family structure. Four conditions encourage more extensive involvement in delinquent activities among males, relative to females: (1) a greater degree of freedom from the controls of parental agency; (2) more exposure to and support for master schemas that de ne activities as gender speci c and legitimize male independence; (3) a greater preference for a risk-seeking approach to life; and (4) a stronger conviction that one is unlikely to experience negative consequences for engaging in risky activities. Overall, the gender-deviance imbalance that these relationships produce is pronounced in more patriarchal families and weaker in less patriarchal ones. In the latter, more balanced families, mothers’ agency, particularly when expressed through control practices and a questioning of patriarchal schemas, can mitigate the aforementioned process and reduce the


gender difference in delinquency and despair, by changing the views and activities of both sons and daughters. In these families, mothers’ control may decrease sons’ support for gendered-activity schemas which may in turn diminish risk preferences and beliefs of impunity – changes that should decrease involvement in direct and physically aggressive delinquency and subsequent drug and alcohol use. These mothers may also control their daughters less than more patriarchal mothers, thereby increasing their daughters’ penchant for risks and aggressive delinquent involvement and drug and alcohol use relative to girls in more patriarchal families. For all of these reasons, and although subject to change with trends towards equality in family structures and processes, male and female youth may often develop different ideas about acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. In reviewing the literature, there is evidence that boys and girls receive messages from the adult world that become increasingly divergent during adolescence. These messages correspond to splits in basic assumptions: over time, conceptions about self-worth, control in the world, autonomy and importance relative to others heighten for boys and decline for girls. This divergence contributes to explaining the emergence of sex differences in internalizing and externalizing problems (Rosen eld 1999: 220). These internalizing and externalizing problems may constitute important transitional stages in the formation of fateful trajectories toward longer term adult life outcomes. 6. Studying the delinquent transition From the life-course perspective advanced in this paper, delinquency can be seen as a transitional event or set of events that mediates the movement from feelings of anger through rebellious and/or aggressive (i.e. delinquent) forms of behavior to later feelings of despair. Elder (1985) notes that ‘transitions are always embedded in trajectories that give them distinctive form and meaning’ (31) and that ‘the same event or transition followed by different adaptations can lead to very different trajectories’ (35). Power-control theory seeks to explain how this transition may be gendered by family structures and processes. Indirect and direct forms of aggression as well as depression and drinking often emerge as gendered adapta-

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tions to family structures and processes and in turn evolve into longer term vulnerabilities in adult trajectories. Several research traditions considered in this paper may be combined in the following ways to understand more fully these structured processes. Agnew’s strain theory usefully incorporates life-course features in (1) seeing anger leading to delinquency as an early phase of a stress process, and (2) delinquency itself as a further source of distress as a result of the responses that it provokes from others. Crick’s research illuminates the tendency (3a) for girls to be involved in indirect, relational forms of aggressive delinquency, and (3b) the tendency for boys to be involved in direct, physical forms of aggressive delinquency. Rosen eld’s work also is helpful in predicting that the subsequent stages of this stress process may take genderspeci c forms involving (4a) internalized feelings of depression among females and 4b) externalized drinking and drug problems among males. Aneshensel underlines that these stress processes are easily obscured if they are not properly speci ed by gender, and that therefore increased attention should be given to male propensities for substance abuse as well as female tendencies toward depression. Embedded in this analysis is the further implication that emotional despair is more likely to succeed than precede delinquency, a point that may well be crucial in understanding the delinquency–despair relationship. Failure meaningfully to measure, order and specify the sequential nature of the delinquency, depression and drinking relationship may be a reason why important links between delinquency and distress have not been discerned in past quantitative, longitudinal studies. Power-control theory offers a perspective for viewing persistence and change in the delinquency–despair sequence. This theory predicts that in more patriarchal families lower levels of instrumental control of males compared with females produces a sequence in which males more often move from direct and physically aggressive delinquency to drinking and drug use. This theory also implies that in more patriarchal families higher levels of relational control of females compared with males may yield sequences in which females more often move from indirect, relational involvements in delinquency to feelings of depression. However, as the schemas that undermine patriarchal family relations lessen the prominence of patriarchy and are mobilized for the


purpose of altering these structures and processes, males and females may become more alike in their expressions of delinquency and despair. Unfortunately, it is uncommon for contemporary longitudinal studies to examine simultaneously contrasting forms of delinquency and despair along with measured variations in the family structures and schemas discussed in this paper. Longitudinal research will become more useful in testing the ideas advanced in this paper as it becomes more sensitive to the gendered and emotional as well as structured and processual aspects of delinquency in the life course. This may already be asking a lot in terms of change in research design, but to this we would add a further and nal suggestion for future work. This suggestion is for the purposive inclusion of opposite-sex sibling pairs in the samples developed for longitudinal studies. Sibling samples allow tests of difference models that hold constant the many variables that sibling pairs have in common (see Duncan 1998; Hagan and Foster forthcoming). The power-control theory advanced in this paper posits family structure as a salient causal variable. Opposite-sex sibling pairs provide a unique opportunity systematically to vary and hold family structure constant in examining gender differences, for example, in sequences of delinquency and despair. Sibling difference samples and models are a powerful new tool in social science research, and they provide unique possibilities for future tests of the power-control theory elaborated in this paper.

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