school attachment and official delinquency status in the people's republic of china

Sociological Forum, Vol. 11, No. 2, 1996

School Attachment and Official Delinquency Status in the People's Republic of China

Lening Zhang I and Steven E M e s s n e r 2

This research examines the effect of school attachment on the likelihood of being an officially sanctioned delinquent using data for a sample of youths in Tianjin, China. Our statistical analyses are organized around a conventional, integrated causal model that draws upon Western criminological theories of delinquency. The results of multivariate regression analyses reveal that school attachment and school quality are inversely related to an indicator of official delinquency status. A measure of association with delinquent peers similarly exerts a significant but positive effect on official delinquency status. Our analyses are consistent with perspectives on delinquency developed in the West, suggesting that these perspectives are reasonably generalizable. We conclude with a discussion of new directions for further comparative research on delinquency in China.

KEY WORDS: school attachment; delinquency; cross-cultural research; People's Republic of China.

INTRODUCTION

The school is a key institution for socializing the young in modern industrial societies. It bears responsibility not only for developing the cog- nitive skills required for adult social roles but also for the transmission of the normative culture that governs interaction (Bynum and Thompson, 1992:319; Dreeben, 1968:42-56). It is thus not surprising that criminologists have long recognized the potential influence of the school in the etiology

IResearch Institute on Addictions, 1021 Main Street, Buffalo, NY 14203. aDepartment of Sociology, University at Albany, SUNY Albany, NY 12222.

285

0884-8971/96/0600-0285509.50/0 �9 1996 Plenum Publishing Corporation

286 Zhang and Messner

and control of juvenile delinquency (Cernkovich and Giordana, 1992:261- 262).

The theoretical perspective in criminology that has inspired the great- est interest in the link between the school and delinquency is Travis Hir- schi's (1969) "bonding theory." Hirschi's theory is a variant of the general "control" theory of social behavior that is rooted in Durkheimian sociology (Liska and Reed, 1985:547-548). Hirschi assumes that deviant behavior is intrinsically very attractive and that the motivation for such behavior is un- problematic. What needs to be explained is compliance with social rules. According to bonding theory, ties to conventional institutions restrain de- viant motivations and promote conformity. The school is, in Hirschi's (1969:110) words, an "eminently conventional" institution, which implies that bonding to the school should inhibit deviance.

The present analysis explores the relationship between school attach- ment and delinquency with data for a sample of youths from Tianjin, China. China offers an intriguing research setting because of its distinctive culture, social structure, and historical experiences. Education and learning have traditionally been revered in China, and in contemporary times, the opera- tion of Chinese schools has been tightly integrated with the political regime. These features of China are likely to enhance the stature of schools as institutions of social control. At the same time, a mass movement that oc- curred fairly recently--the "Cultural Revolution"--seriously disrupted the operation of schools and challenged their legitimacy. This upheaval may have weakened the social control functions of the schools.

Our analysis begins with a discussion of the social and historical con- text of schooling in contemporary China. We then review the literature on school attachment and delinquency and introduce a causal model of the determinants of delinquency. We conclude with a few comments about fur- ther possibilities for comparative research on delinquency in China.

THE SCHOOL AND SOCIAL CONTROL IN CHINESE SOCIETY

The school system in China is comprised of three basic levels: ele- mentary, middle, and higher. The middle school can be further subdivided into two types. One type, which is commonly referred to as "junior middle school," has three grades. The other type combines the three grades of junior middle school with two grades of "senior middle school." According to The Compulsory Education Law of the People's Republic of China (1986), each child over 6 years of age is expected to attend elementary school and junior middle school. After graduation from junior middle

School Attachment 287

school at age 16, youths can choose either to take examinations for entry into senior middle schools or technical schools, or they can become em- ployed immediately.

As noted above, the school system in China is closely coupled with the political system. The Communist Party sets up a grassroots branch in each school that exerts control over the school. Each branch is responsible for teachers' and students' political and moral education. The head of each branch is the top authority in the school.

Direct political control of the school by the Party was particularly pro- nounced under Mao's regime, during which time education was "defined as a tool of political struggle, serving the Communist totalitarian control" (Lin, 1993:70). Subsequent to Mao's death, Deng Xiaoping and his follow- ers introduced educational changes in conjunction with economic reform. One of the more important educational reforms has been the division of authority between the Party's secretary and the principal. On the surface, this division gives the principal more power in the school's administration and limits the power of the Party's secretary. However, as Lin (1993:85) observes, "so far in practice reform has proved to be more structural than substantial."

Two social organizations are attached to the branch of the Communist Party in each school, which further enhance the Party's control. In elemen- tary schools, the Party supervises sections of the Communist Young Pio- neers. The analogous organization at the middle school level is the Communist Youth League. Members of both of these associations are gen- erally honored and have high prestige among students.

In addition to the political structures operating within the school itself, there are two special social units at the community level that exert an im- portant influence on school activities: the Neighborhood Committees and the neighborhood police station (Johnson, 1984; Troyer, 1989a). The school can request direct assistance from these entities in educational efforts. For example, members of the Neighborhood Committee might visit the families of school children to discuss behavior in the school.

Cultural features of China also facilitate the social control functions of the school. China has a long tradition of honoring and respecting teach- ers and learning, a tradition rooted in Confucian philosophy (Lang, 1946; Munro, 1977; Rojek, 1989; Troyer, 1989b). The traditional concern with the socialization of youth in China has been reinforced in contemporary times. During Mao's reign, courses on moral education were required for all students at every level in the schools. These courses were combined with political instruction, and they played an important part in the overall evaluation of students. Although the political requirements for students have been lessened in recent years, students are still required to take

288 Zhang and Messner

courses on topics such as citizenship education and moral education. These courses are concerned with "the development of desirable attitudes and behaviors toward the Communist authority and government and, accord- ingly, toward the general public and the individual self" (Lin, 1993:3).

Thus, while the school is likely to be a primary institution of social control in any modern society, there are special structural and cultural fea- tures of China that suggest that this institution might play a particularly important role in controlling the behavior of Chinese youths. At the same time, however, the tumultuous events that occurred during the Cultural Revolution may have undermined the efficacy of the schools as institutions of social control.

The Cultural Revolution expressed a complex array of conflicts per- meating Chinese society, but in the realm of education, the movement cen- tered around efforts to remove "bourgeois" influences from the schools. 3 The established educational system was harshly criticized on multiple counts. The character of these criticisms are well captured in Mao's famous statement on education at the outset of the Cultural Revolution in May of 1966:

While the students' main task is to study, they should also learn other things, that is to say, they should not only learn book knowledge, they should also learn industrial production, agricultural production, and military affairs. They should also criticize and repudiate the bourgeoisie. The length of schooling should be shortened, education should be revolutionized, and the domination of our schools and colleges by bourgeois intellectuals should not be tolerated any longer. (quoted in Lofstedt, 1980:124)

Mao's pronouncement and the responses to it prompted dramatic changes in educational policy and practices. Examinations were formally suspended. The Ministry of Education was rendered inactive. Regular classes were abolished, and in their place, students met to expose the al- leged abuses and errors of teachers and school administrators. For awhile, education was brought to a virtual "standstill" (Lofstedt, 1980:132).

As social order dissolved in the schools, squads of students adorned themselves with arm bands signifying that they were members of the "Red Guard"-- the "vanguard of the new revolutionary upheaval" (Spence, 1990:604). The more fanatical elements of these Red Guards embarked on campaigns of destruction and terror. Spence describes vividly the chaotic and horrifying conditions of the time:

With all schools and colleges closed for the staging of revolutionary struggle, millions of the young were encouraged by the Cultural Revolution's leaders to demolish the old buildings, temples, and art objects in their towns and villages, and

3The following discussion of the Cultural Revolution draws heavily upon Kwong (1988), Lofstedt (1980), and Spence (1990).

School Attachment 289

to attack their teachers, school administrators, party leaders, and parents . . . . Thousands of intellectuals and others were beaten to death or died of their injuries. Countless others committed suicide . . . . Many of these suicides killed themselves only after futile attempts to avoid Red Guard harassment by destroying their own libraries and art collections. Thousands more were imprisoned, often in solitary confinement, for years. Millions were relocated to purify themselves through labor in the countryside. (1990:605-606).

Gradually, schools were reopened, beginning with the elementary schools in 1968, followed by the middle schools, and then the universities. The period of chaos, however, had lingering effects. Teachers had lost pres- tige and had been "cowed by the violence and excesses of the movement" (Kwong, 1988:156). More generally, "intellectuals no longer commanded the same respect as before; in the 1970s, they became the 'stinking ninth category,' the lowest in the social stratification scale of China" (Kwong, 1988:140).

The Party and the Chinese government have undertaken concerted ef- forts to recover from the Cultural Revolution and to reconstruct the school system. It has proven difficult, however, to undo the damage of the Cultural Revolution and to restore the prestige of the educational enterprise. This task has been made all the more difficult by unintended consequences of the economic reforms promoted in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. The Chinese government has disseminated various propaganda underscoring the importance of education, but the reality of economic reform has led to a widespread impression that those who achieve less education are economi- cally more successful than those who achieve extensive education. In this type of social climate, adolescents are prone to a skeptical view of the value of education, expressed in the common refrain among Chinese adolescents that "it is useless to study" (Rojek, 1989:92-93). The leadership in China has explicitly recognized the failures of educational reform in the drive to- ward modernization. 4

To summarize, features of Chinese society yield contradictory impli- cations for the role of schools as agents of social control. The respect for learning associated with traditional Chinese culture should enhance the ca- pacity of schools to exert control over youths. Similarly, the close articula- tion between the schools and other institutions of social control, especially political organizations, should strengthen the socialization capacity of the schools. On the other hand, the lingering effects of the Cultural Revolution, in combination with unintended consequences of economic reforms, may have weakened the control functions of Chinese schools. This prompts us

4On March 23, 1989, in a conversation with the President of Uganda, Deng Xiaoping ac- knowledged that the greatest mistake in the preceding era of reform in China (1979-1989) was the insufficient development in education (Culture and Communications Research Cen- ter of Fudan University, 1990:25).

290 Zhang and Messner

to raise the basic question at the heart of our inquiry: To what extent is school attachment related to delinquency status in contemporary China?

PREVIOUS RESEARCH ON SCHOOL ATTACHMENT AND DELINQUENCY

A fairly large body of evidence concerning the relationship between school attachment and delinquency in the United States and other Western nations has accumulated over recent decades. This research has been re- viewed elsewhere and can be summarized very briefly here (Gibbons and Krohn 1991, pp. 101-105; Kercher 1988, pp. 303-304). The evidence gen- erally suggests that "as school attachment increases, the likelihood of de- linquency declines" (Sampson and Laub, 1993:101). 5

There is very little data available concerning the relationship between school attachment and delinquency in China. From 1949, when the People's Republic of China was founded, up through 1976, the study of juvenile delinquency was virtually nonexistent. The situation began to change in the mid-1970s as a result of growing concern over perceived increases in youth crime.

Much of the Chinese research to date on school attachment and de- linquency is speculative and descriptive. Studies by Chi (1989), Liu (1984), and Zhao (1986) discuss possible associations between delinquency and dif- ficulties in schooling and educational performance. These studies do not, however, provide empirical evidence to substantiate the hypothesized links between school variables and delinquency. A study by Zhang (1985) reports descriptive data on the affectional ties between teachers and youths for a sample of 165 inmates of a reform school in Beijing. Zhang's (1985:208) data reveal that 70.9% of the delinquent youths report "cold" and "stressed" relationships with their master teachers. Unfortunately, Zhang does not report comparable figures for a sample of nondelinquents, making it impossible to infer an association between these variables.

Clearer evidence of a bivariate relationship between school attachment and delinquency is found in a study by Gao (1986). Gao examines the re- lationship between academic performance and the risk of delinquent in- volvement for a sample of 500 official delinquents and 500 nondelinquents in Liaoning Province. His data reveal that 21.7% of the official delinquents

5Most of the research on school attachment and delinquency has been cross-sectional. A study by Liska and Reed (1985:557) questions the nature of the causal relationship, concluding that "most of the observed negative relationship between school attachment and delinquency comes about because of the effect of delinquency on school attachment." See Gibbons and Krohn (1991:104) for a discussion of limitations of this study.

School Attachment 291

have records of "good grades" in comparison with 78.3% of the nondelin- quents. In addition, Gao also compares levels of truancy across the two subsamples. The results indicate that 89.2% of official delinquents are fre- quently truant compared with 10.8% of the nondelinquents.

Chinese studies also provide suggestive evidence for a relationship be- tween dropping out and delinquency. Zhang et al. (1983) compare drop-out rates for inmates in a Tianjin reformatory with rates for those in the general population. Their figures show that for each year in the 1978-1981 period, the drop-out rate for the official delinquents substantially exceeds the rate for the "civilian" population (Zhang et al., 1983:223; see also Chen, 1987; Fen and Yuan, 1986).

In sum, there is much speculation about the relationship between in- dicators of school attachment and delinquency in China and scattered evi- dence of bivariate associations. A more definitive assessment of the effects of school attachment, however, requires more sophisticated techniques and multivariate analyses.

THEORETICAL LINKAGES BETWEEN SCHOOL ATTACHMENT AND OTHER VARIABLES IN THE

ETIOLOGY OF DELINQUENCY

We adopt an integrated model according to which three variables ex- ert direct causal effects on delinquency: school attachment, family attach- ment, and association with delinquent peers (see Fig. 1). This model draws upon control (bonding) theory, differential association theory, and social learning theory. Control theory predicts negative effects of school attach- ment and family attachment on delinquency (Hirschi, 1969). Differential association theory and social learning theory predict a positive relationship between association with delinquent peers and delinquency (Akers, 1994:91-108). Finally, consistent with past research and theorizing (Hirschi, 1969:131; Johnson et al., 1987; Wiatrowski et al., 1981), family attachment is expected to exert a positive effect on school attachment, and both school attachment and family attachment are expected to exert negative effects on delinquent peer associations.

We also consider several background variables (see Sampson and Laub, 1993). 6 High parental status is expected to be related to strong school attachment and to infrequent associations with delinquent peers. Exposure

6Some of these control variables may also be causally related to family attachment, but such relationships are not relevant to the primary focus of the present analysis. We do not predict any direct causal effects of the background variables on delinquency but allow for such effects in the statistical analyses.

292 Zhang and Messner

I Background Variables:

Parental Status Family Deviance Neighbors" Deviance School Quality Age Gender

' Ischoo~ ]

Delinquency

Fig. 1. A causal model of the role of school attachment in the etiol- ogy of delinquency.

to deviance both in the family and in the neighborhood is likely to decrease school attachment and increase exposure to delinquent peers. Consistent with Sutherland's insight that "the school program itself" may influence whether children like or dislike school, we predict that school quality is positively related to school attachment (Sutherland and Cressey, 1970:239). We further speculate that school quality is negatively related to association with delinquent peers, reasoning that good schools exert greater supervision and reduce opportunities for associations with delinquent peers. Also, fol- lowing common practices, age and gender are included as demographic controls.

DATA AND METHODS

The data come from a survey conducted by the Sociology Department of Nankai University in collaboration with the Tianjin Communist Youth League (CYL) in 1988. The purpose of the survey was to investigate the nature of, and possible causes of, youthful offenses in the city of Tianjin. The survey design was based on a strategy in which two subsamples were selected from official offenders in correctional institutions and from youths in the general population.

The officially delinquent subsample came from three types of correc- tional institutions: reformatories, reeducation through labor camps, and prisons. In China, there are six levels of juvenile dispositions and punish- ments. They include: (1) "Bang-jiao," which is a community-based measure for controlling delinquency; (2) security dispositions, which are administra- tive measures for misbehaviors that fall short of criminal offenses (Bid- dulph, 1993:342); (3) special education in training schools, which handle youths deemed to be too difficult to educate in regular schools (Curran

School Attachment 293

and Cook, 1993:309-313); (4) reeducation through labor; (5) discipline in a reformatory; and (6) reform through labor and prison (see Guo and Ma, 1986; Rojek, 1989; Curran and Cook, 1993). 7 The "official delinquents" in our study have received one of the latter three of these dispositions, all of which involve incarceration in special residential areas that are separated from the general public. The first author, in collaboration with the research staff of the CYL, contacted officers in the police department of Tianjin who were responsible for the targeted correctional institutions and pro- posed a quota of respondents. Police officials recruited subjects who com- pleted anonymous questionnaires administered by the CYL research staff.

The general population subsample was taken from middle schools, other educational and cultural institutions, production enterprises, and the self-employed population. We employed a stratified, purposive sampling procedure to select schools and work units for the recruitment of respon- dents. The stratification criteria for the selection of schools were geographi- cal location and school quality. In Chinese cities such as Tianjin, different districts exhibit different social characteristics. We accordingly selected schools to represent the varying districts of the city. In addition, schools were differentiated into three quality levels: excellent, average, and poor. Schools from each of the three quality levels were chosen. The stratification criterion for work units was the nature of the productive activity: heavy industry, light industry, and service functions. We established contacts with each branch of the CYL in the targeted social units (schools and work units) and gained permission to administer questionnaires to the recruited respondents.

The original research design called for the selection of 500 official de- linquents and 500 youths from the general population. Responses were eventually obtained from 369 and 443 members of these two groups re- spectively. The present study is based on a subset of youthful respondents (ages 15-18), whose primary occupational status was "student." In the analysis of the general population, subjects are those who were in middle schools at the time of the survey. The youths in the delinquent subsample are those who had been in middle school immediately prior to placement in their current correctional institution. A total of 166 youths met these requirements (68 "officially delinquent" ex-students and 98 "civilian" mid- dle school students). After listwise deletion of cases due to missing data,

7These six levels of juvenile dispositions and punishments represent only a segment of the juvenile justice system in China. China relies on a unique combination of formal and informal controls, placing a particularly strong emphasis on the latter. One of the more important dimensions of informal control is the role of the community in preventing delinquency and rehabilitating delinquents. For discussions of informal social control in China, see Guo and Ma (1986), and Troyer (1989b).

294 Zhang and Messner

the effective sample size is 143 respondents--57 from the officially delin- quent subsample and 86 from the general population subsample.

Our primary dependent variable is official delinquency status, which is measured by membership in the respective subsamples. This measure is coded as a dummy variable with "1" assigned to official delinquents and "0" to students in the general population. Ideally, information on official delinquency status would be supplemented with self-reports of delinquent behavior. Unfortunately, self-report methodology has not been developed in China, and the validity and feasibility of such procedures are unknown.

We therefore follow the precedent of previous Chinese research on delinquency and use official delinquency status as an indirect indicator of level of involvement in delinquent activity (cf. Chi, 1985; Gao, 1986; Zhang et al., 1983). It seems reasonable to assume that official delinquents will tend to be involved in more frequent and more serious delinquent acts, but, of course, official delinquency status will reflect not only actual delin- quent behavior but also the "official processing" of youths. We attempt to deal with this problem by including background variables (described below) that are likely to be related to processes of differential social control.

The strategic independent variable is school attachment. We measure this variable with an index reflecting perceptions of teachers, attitudes to- ward school, and self-ratings of academic ability. The specific question con- cerning perceptions of teachers is, "What is your impression of your master teacher?" The response categories and corresponding codes are "bad" = 1, "average" = 2; and "good" = 3. The item on school attitudes is a ques- tion about whether the students generally like school. The possible answers are "no, do not like school" = 1; "indifferent towards school" = 2, and "yes, like school" = 3. The question for academic ability is, "How do you rate yourself in your level of school ability in your grade?" The response categories are "low level" = 1, "middle level" = 2, and "upper level" = 3. The school attachment index is created by adding scores across these three items. The standardized alpha coefficient of reliability for the index is .64.

The two other hypothesized determinants of delinquency in our causal model are family attachment and delinquent peer association. The measure of family attachment is based on the question, "How do you feel about your family life?" Three response categories are provided: "I often feel more emotionally stressed, more tense, and more unhappy in the home than outside"; "I have ambivalent feelings about my family life"; and "I often feel happy and warm in my family life." These responses are scored 1-3 respectively to reflect increasingly positive feelings about family life. Delinquent peer association is measured by an index combining two yes/no items: "Do any of your friends regularly engage in deviant behaviors such

School Attachment 295

as gambling and fighting? .... Have anY of your friends ever been punished by criminal justice agencies?" We combine the responses across these two items to create an ordinal measure of delinquent peer association with four categories: 0 = neither deviant nor criminal friends, 1 = only deviant friends, 2 = only criminal friends, and 3 = both deviant and criminal friends)

Six background variables are included in the analysis because they may affect both involvement in delinquent behavior as well as the official processing of delinquency. Parental status is a dummy variable reflecting parents' official position: officials (1) vs nonofficials (0). Officials include persons with a rank above section chief, shop director, or battalion com- mander in political, economic, and military systems. In China, officials have greater power and access to resources than nonofficials and thus enjoy a higher position in the stratification structure.

Indexes for family deviance and neighbors' deviance are constructed using procedures similar to that used in the measurement of delinquent peer associations. The items for the family deviance index are as follows: "Do any of your family members regularly engage in excessive drinking, gambling, or deviant behavior? .... Have any members of your family ever been punished by criminal justice agencies?" The yes/no responses to these two items are combined to yield an index with the scores 0 = neither de- viant nor criminal, 1 = only deviant family members, 2 = only criminal family members, and 3 = both deviant and criminal family members. The index for neighbors' deviance is based on two analogous items that substi- tute reference to "neighbors" for "family members."

The measure of school quality is the respondent's assessment of the school as being either "poor" (1), "average" (2), or "excellent" (3). These ratings refer either to current school for members of the general population or to most recent school for members of the delinquent subsample. Finally, age is measured in years, and gender is a dummy variable scored in the direction of "male."

When assessing the determinants of the school attachment and delin- quent peer associations (measures with four or more categories), we use ordinary least squares (OLS) regression techniques. Logistic regression is employed in the analysis of official delinquency status given the dichoto- mous nature of this measure.

8Within the context of the questionnaire, "deviant behavior" refers to minor delinquent or criminal acts. Punishment by the criminal justice system, in contrast, implies serious violations of the law. Respondents who report that friends have been punished by the criminal justice system are accordingly assigned a higher score than those who report friends with only "de- viant" behavior.

296 Zhang and Messner

Before turning to the results, it is necessary to acknowledge important methodological limitations associated with our research. Our data were col- lected in a single Chinese city--Tianjin. The demographic, economic, and social characteristics of this city differ significantly from many other areas in China, especially from nonurban areas. Any generalization of the results to other parts of China must therefore be done with great caution.

In addition, the lack of adequate sampling frames, as well as logistical problems in gaining access to subjects, precluded the use of random sam- pling. The adoption of stratified, purposive sampling is an accommodation to these constraints. Measurement of key variables is also more problematic in China than in the United States, where fairly standardized ways of op- erationalizing concepts have been developed. We have been forced to im- provise in an effort to formulate measures that are roughly comparable to those used in delinquency research in the United States, but that are mean- ingful to Chinese respondents. We recognize that the quality of our data is suspect when compared with the data commonly used in delinquency research in the United States. These data are nevertheless superior to data available in previous research in China, and they offer a unique opportunity to explore the role of the school in the etiology of delinquency in a dis- tinctive societal context.

RESULTS

Although our primary focus is on delinquency, we begin our analysis by examining the determinants of the other two endogenous variables in Fig. 1. Table I reports the results of two OLS regression equations. In the first equation, school attachment is regressed on family attachment and the background variables. In the second equation, delinquent peer association serves as the dependent variable, and school attachment is included as a predictor along with the other independent variables.

The results in the first equation of Table I indicate that two variables related to family life significantly affect Chinese youths' attachment to school: family attachment and family deviance. 9 Consistent with social con- trol theory and research in the United States (Wiatrowski et al., 1981), fam- ily attachment exhibits a moderately strong positive effect on school attachment (beta = .31). Youths who are strongly attached to their families tend to be strongly attached to their schools as well. Family deviance also

9Although tests of statistical significance are not technically applicable given the nonrandom nature of the sample, we follow the conventional practice of reporting the results of such tests to identify relationships that are not likely to be generated by chance. One-tailed tests are performed when the sign of the relationship is predicted by criminological theory.

School Attachment

Table I. OLS Regressions of School Attachment and Delinquent Peer Association on Hypothesized Determinants (N = 143) ~

297

Dependent Variable

Independent School Attachment Delinquent Peer Assoc.

Variables Beta t Ratio Beta t Ratio

Family attachment .31 3.59 b -.21 -2.370 Parental status -.03 -.38 -.07 -.97 Family deviance -.15 -1.78 b .01 .16 Neighbors' deviance -.03 -.33 .19 2.30 b School quality .08 .94 -.23 -2.80 b Age .02 .20 -.05 -.67 Gender .08 .98 .05 .65 School attachment - - - - -.19 -2.26 b R 2 .18 .26

aStandardized regression coefficients are reported. bp < .05.

exhibits a modest but significant negative effect on school attachment (beta = -.15). This suggests that deviant models in the family can inhibit the formation of ties to conventional institutions like the school (cf. Sampson and Laub, 1993:110-113). None of the other background variables exhibits an appreciable direct effect on school attachment.

Turning to the second equation in Table I, the results reveal a signifi- cant negative effect of school attachment on delinquent peer associations (beta = -.19). Close ties to the school evidently reduce the likelihood that a youth is exposed to delinquent influences from friends. Interestingly, school quality also exhibits a significant negative effect on delinquent peer associations net of school attachment, and the effect of this variable is the strongest in the equation (beta = -.23). Good schools inhibit exposure to delinquent peers in ways independent of the ties between students and the school. Once again, family attachment emerges as a significant predictor (beta = -.21). This finding and the results in the first equation imply that strong family bonds affect delinquent peer associations both directly and indirectly via school attachment (see Wiatrowski et al., 1981:537). Finally, neighbors' deviance is positively related to delinquent peer associations (beta = .19). This finding is not surprising within the context of Chinese society because neighbors are the primary sources of social contacts outside of the immediate family due to the limited opportunities for geographical mobility.

Table II reports the results of logistic regression equations predicting official delinquency status. In the first equation, family attachment and the background variables serve as the only independent variables. School at-

298 Zhang and Messner

Table II. Regressions of Official Delinquent Status on Hypothesized Determinants (N = 143) ~

Equation

Independent Variable 1 2 3

Family attachment -.62 -.18 .09 (-1.72 b) (-.46) (.21)

Parental status -.48 -.71 -.85 (-.97) (-1.22) (-1.41)

Family deviance 1.71 2.82 2.58 (1.91 b) (1.88 b) (1.85 b)

Neighbors' deviance .32 .41 .32 (1.66 b) (1.870) (1.36)

School quality -2.46 -3.14 -3.01 (--4.50 b) (--4.45 b) (-4.12 b)

Age .10 .18 .34 (.45) (.69) (1.21)

Gender -.39 -.22 -.68 (-.88) (-.42) (-1.21)

School attachment -- -.95 -.90 (-4.31 b ) (-3.970 )

Delinquent peer assoc. -- -- .77 (2.54/)

Model chi-square 64.770 91.170 98.8Y

aLogistic regression coefficients are reported. The t ratios are given in parentheses.

bp < .05.

tachment is added as a predictor in Equation 2, and the measure of de- linquent peer associations is added in Equation 3.

The findings are generally supportive of Western perspectives on the causes of delinquency. Considering the fully specified model first (Equation 3), school attachment yields a significantly negative direct effect on delin- quency status (b = -.90; t = -3.97), while association with delinquent peers exhibits a significantly positive effect (b = .77; t = 2.54). The probability of official delinquency status is thus decreased by strong ties to the school and increased by exposure to delinquent friends, consistent with social con- trol theory and differential association theory respectively. Contrary to our initial hypothesis, family attachment does not exert a direct effect on de- linquency status.

The regression results in Equation 3 also reveal a positive direct effect of family deviance on official delinquency status (b = 2.58; t = 1.85). In other words, being exposed to deviant family members tends to increase the likelihood of official delinquency status independent of the affective ties to the family and differential associations with delinquent peers. This finding is consistent with social learning approaches, and it replicates an

School Attachment 299

earlier study based on a different sample of youths from the Tianjin survey (Zhang and Messner, 1995). 1~ The remaining predictor with a significant direct effect on delinquency status is school quality (b = -3.01; t = -4.12). Youths who rate their schools highly are less likely to be official delinquents than those who assign lower ratings.

Comparisons across the equations in Table II suggest that the influ- ence of family attachment on official delinquency status is indirect via school attachment and association with delinquent peers. Family attach- ment yields a significant negative coefficient when school attachment and delinquent peer associations are excluded from the model (see Equation 1). The coefficient is noticeably reduced as the latter two variables are en- tered into the model (Equations 2 and 3). The effect of neighbors' deviance on official delinquency status also appears to be mediated by delinquent peer associations (compare Equations 2 and 3). Not surprisingly, residence in a neighborhood with many deviants is positively related to the probability of official delinquency status because it is positively associated with delin- quent peer associations.

SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION

Our research on the role of school attachment in the etiology of ju- venile delinquency in Chinese society yields several interesting findings. Levels of school attachment reflect features of family life in general. Strong attachment to the family facilitates strong attachment to the school, whereas deviance in the family impedes the formation of ties to the school. These findings reaffirm an elementary principle of sociology: social insti- tutions are interdependent, and the functioning of one has important im- plications for the operation of others.

Our analysis also reveals that the functioning of the school is highly relevant to the understanding of delinquency in contemporary China. Chi- nese youths who are strongly attached to the school are at comparatively low risk of becoming official delinquents. Moreover, strong school attach- ment reduces the likelihood of exposure to delinquent peers, which is itself

1~ previous study on family deviance has a different analytic focus from the present study. As a consequence, model specification and sample composition differ. Several variables that are omitted from the present analysis are significant predictors of delinquency in the earlier study. We have estimated a logistic regression equation for delinquency status retaining the significant predictors from Table II and including the significant predictors from the previous analysis. The effect of school attachment is essentially the same, with a regression coefficient of -.87 and a t value of -3.63.

300 Zhang and Messner

an important determinant of delinquency status. These findings are gener- ally consistent with research and theorizing in the West.

Our other school variable--school quality--also emerges as an important predictor of delinquency. Similar to school attachment, school quality exerts both a direct effect on delinquency and an indirect effect via peer associa- tions. These effects are intriguing because they are net of the effects of meas- ures of parental status and neighborhood deviance, the latter of which probably reflects neighborhood socioeconomic status. We suspect that the ef- fect of school quality on delinquency reflects two processes. On the one hand, the high quality schools are likely to recruit conscientious teachers and staff. This should enhance supervision and create a general social climate in the school conducive to conventional behavior. There is probably a "selection process" at work as well. Placement into high quality schools in urban China is based on academic ability as demonstrated by performance on standardized examinations. More academically talented youths are thus likely to attend high quality schools, and these kinds of youths are less likely to be delinquent for a variety of reasons (see Gibbons and Krohn, 1991:183-194).

We caution once again that our analyses focus on the relationship be- tween school attachment and official delinquency status. Becoming an of- ficial delinquent obviously depends not only on actual delinquent behavior but on the response of agents of social control. We have included as control variables factors that are likely to be related to the differential "processing" of youths (e.g., parental status, family deviance) and assessed the effects of school attachment net of these factors. It is plausible to speculate, how- ever, that school attachment itself might affect official processing in China as well as involvement in delinquent behavior.

As previously explained, the educational system in China has close structural links with other social agencies such as the Neighborhood Com- mittee and the neighborhood police stations. As a result, a student's repu- tation in school is likely to be known to persons who have the authority to initiate and pursue formal means of social control. Youths with weak school attachment thus may be more likely to be labeled as "bad kids" and more likely to become targets for social control independent of actual behavior. This implies that the observed relationship between school attachment and official delinquency status probably confounds, at least to some extent, eti- ological and labeling effects. Future research using supplementary indicators of delinquency is needed to reveal the relative magnitudes of these effects.

We close with a final comment on future strategies for cross-cultural research. The present study basically has been informed by what Bennett (1980) calls the "evaluative approach" to cross-cultural analysis. In this ap- proach, the researcher evaluates the applicability and generalizability of theories originally developed in one culture to an alien sociocultural context

School Attachment 301

(Bennett, 1980:254-255). Our analysis suggests that Western criminological theory can indeed be fruitfully applied to Chinese society.

An important additional task for the future is to use cross-cultural evi- dence to generate new theoretical understandings. This type of "generative approach" to cross-cultural research looks for differences in the determi- nants of social phenomena across cultures, as well as similarities, and then attempts to incorporate these differences into more general theoretical frameworks with the use of higher order concepts (Bennett, 1980:257-265). We can speculate on one possible determinant of delinquency that may be distinctive to the Chinese context: "model worship" or "hero worship."

Learning from models or heroes has been an important way to educate the public in general and children in particular on how to be the "perfect" person at least since Confucius' time in China (Munro, 1977; Troyer, 1989b). During Mao's regime, a good example of a model used for such purposes was Lei Feng, a People's Liberation Army soldier of the 1960s. Lei was lavishly praised by the Party for his hard work, love of socialism, and patriotism.

There have been some changes in the types of models that have been used in post-Maoist China, but learning from models is still an important technique by which the Chinese government attempts to promote desirable attitudes and behaviors among youths. For example, the "Ten Best Youths" are selected nationwide by the Communist Youth League of China each year. These "best" youths have distinguished themselves through success in political, economic, cultural, or military areas, in accordance with the expectations of the Party (Lin, 1993:15). Chinese schools encourage stu- dents to evaluate their own thoughts and behaviors in comparison with such models through a process of self-criticism, thereby promoting desirable po- litical and social attitudes and behaviors.

It would be instructive to expand the list of predictors of Chinese delin- quency to include measures of identification with heroes promoted by the Communist Party and school officials. Perhaps identification with models is one of the more important "bonds" to conventional society in China, in ad- dition to the bonds associated with institutions familiar to Westerners, such as the school and the family. In any event, we maintain that further cross-cultural research on crime and delinquency--both of the evaluative and generative type--should be awarded high priority by criminologists in the years ahead.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are grateful to Marvin D. Krohn and the anonymous referees for comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

302 Zhang and Messner

R E F E R E N C E S

Akers, Ronald L. 1994 Criminological Theories: Introduction

and Evaluation. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury.

Bennett, Richard R. 1980 "Constructing cross-cultural theories

in criminology: Application of the generative approach." Criminology 18:252-268.

Biddulph, Sarah 1993 "Review of police powers of adminis-

trative detention in the People's Re- publ ic of Ch ina . " Cr ime and Delinquency 39:337-354.

Bynum, Jack E. and William E. Thompson 1992 Juvenile Delinquency: A Sociological

Approach. Second Edition. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Cernkovich, Stephen A., and Peggy C. Giordano 1992 "School bonding and delinquency."

Criminology 30:261-291. Chen, Xianrong 1987 "Phenomena of dropping out and

criminal delinquency among middle and primary school students in Bei- jing." Chinese Education 20:86-95.

Chi, Guang 1985 "The investigation of juvenile delin-

quency in six provinces and cities of China." In The Association of Chinese Juvenile Delinquency Study (ed.), 1988 Yearbook on Chinese Juvenile Delinquency Studies 1:236-240. Bei- jing, China: Chuenqiu Publication House.

1989 '~A tentative probe into the causes of juvenile delinquency." Chinese Sociol- ogy and Anthropology 22:42-63.

Culture and Communications Research Center of Fudan University 1990 "Shanghai College professors assess

trends and situations in education: Fudan University conducts a sample survey on how education can extricate itself from its present dilemma." Chi- nese Education 23:22-30.

Curran, Daniel J., and Sandra Cook 1993 "Growing fears, rising crime: Juveniles

and China's justice system." Crime and Delinquency 39:296-315.

Dreeben, Robert 1968 On What is Learned in School. Read-

ing, MA: Addison-Wesley. Fen, Wengao, and Dinghu Yuan 1986 'An investigation of students' drop out

and delinquency." In The Association of Chinese Juvenile Del inquency Study (ed.), 1988 Yearbook on Chi- nese Juvenile Delinquency Studies 1:218-222. Beijing, China: Chuenqiu Publication House.

Gibbons, Don C., and Marvin D. Krohn 1991 Delinquent Behavior, 5th ed. Engle-

wood Cliffs, N J: Prentice-Hall. Gao, Shuqiao 1986 "Social causes of juveni le delin-

quency." Chinese Education 19: 8-26. Guo, Xiang and Jingmiao Ma 1986 "Introduction to juvenile law and

regulations in China." In The Associa- tion of Chinese Juvenile Delinquency Study (ed.), 1988 Yearbook on Chi- nese Juvenile Delinquency Studies 1:783-813. Beijing, China: Chuenqiu Publication House.

Hirschi, Travis 1969 Causes of Delinquency. Berkeley: Uni-

versity of California Press. Johnson, Elmer H. 1984 "Neighborhood police in the People's

Republic of China." Police Studies 6:8-12.

Johnson, Richard E., Anastaisos C. Marcos, and Stephen J. Bahr 1987 "The role of peers in the complex eti-

ology of adolescent drug use." Crimi- nology 25:323-340.

Kercher, Kyle 1988 "Criminology." In Edgar E Borgatta

and Karen S. Cook (eds.), The Future of Sociology: 294-316. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.

Kwong, Julia 1988 Cultural Revolution in China's Schools.

Stanford University, CA: Hoover In- stitution Press.

Lang, Olga 1946 Chinese Family and Society. New Ha-

ven, CT: Yale University Press. Lin, Jing 1993 Education in Post-Mao China. New

York: Praeger Publishers.

School Attachment 303

Liska, Mien E., and Mark D. Reed 1985 "Ties to conventional institutions and

delinquency: Estimating reciprocal ef- fects." American Sociological Review 50:547-560.

Lofstedt, Jan-lngvar 1980 Chinese Educational Policy: Changes

and Constructions 1949-79. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.

Liu, Anqu 1984 "Difficulty in study and delinquency."

In The Association of Chinese Juve- nile Delinquency Study (ed.), 1988 Yearbook on Chinese Juvenile Delin- quency Studies 1:509-512. Beijing, China: Chuenqiu Publication House.

Munro, Donald J. 1977 The Concept of Man in Contemporary

China. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Rojek, Dean G. 1989 "Confucianism, Maoism, and the com-

ing of delinquency to China." In Ronald J. Troyer, John P. Clark, and Dean G. Rojek (eds.), Social Control in the People's Republic of China: 84- 96. New York: Praeger Publishers.

Sampson, Robert J., and John H. Laub 1993 Crime in the Making: Pathways and

Turning Points Through Life. Cam- bridge: Harvard University Press.

Spence, Jonathan D. 1990 The Search for Modern China. New

York: W. W. Norton. Suther land, Edwin H., and Donald R. Cressey 1970 Criminology, 8th ed. Philadelphia:

Lippincott.

"Ikoyer, Ronald J. 1989a "Chinese social organization." In

Ronald J. Troyer, John P. Clark, and Dean G. Rojek (eds.), Social Control in the People's Republic of China: 26- 33. New York: Praeger Publishers.

1989b "Chinese thinking about crime and so- cial control." In Ronald J. Troyer, John E Clark, and Dean G. Rojek (eds.), Social Control in the People's Repub- lic of China: 45-56. New York: Praeger Publishers.

Wiatrowski, Michael D., David B. Griswold, and Mary K. Roberts 1981 "Social control and delinquency."

American Sociological Review 46:525- 541.

Zhang, Jing, Daoseng Shao, Shufeng Yang, Ruehe Yang, Hanying Zhang, and Lu Zhou 1983 "Drop out and delinquency in Tianjin

City." In The Association of Chinese Juvenile Delinquency Study (ed.), 1988 Yearbook on Chinese Juvenile Delinquency Studies 1:222-226. Bei- jing, China: Chuenqiu Publication House.

Zhang, Lening and Steven E Messner 1995 "Family deviance and delinquency in

China." Criminology 33:359-387. Zhang, Panshi 1985 '~aa investigation of interpersonal rela-

tions among delinquent adolescents." In The Association of Chinese Juvenile Delinquency Study (ed.), 1988 Year- book on Chinese Juvenile Delinquency Studies 1:205-215. Beijing, China: Chuenqiu Publication House.

Zhao, Ren 1986 "Work-study schools are excellent."

Chinese Education 19: 37-62.