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The present study investigates the following aspects of Hirschi's (1969) social bonding theory: attachment to parents, attachment to school, involvement in conventional activities, and the belief bond. Specifically, a goal is to fill a gap in the literature by comparing Hirschi's traditional measures to contemporary measure using a single independent national sample of American high school students. Results indicated that the Hybrid Model was the strongest and the Contemporary Model was the weakest. Thus, it is argued that Hirschi's traditional measures predict the largest amount of self-report general deviance. [Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: [email protected] Website: http://www.transformativestudies.org ©2016 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.]
KEYWORDS: Hirschi, Deviance, Delinquency, Juvenile, Youth.
Travis Hirschi (1969) developed social bonding theory. The main premise of his argument was that conformity, not deviance, is what needs explaining. The present study further investigated the following aspects of Hirschi's social bonding theory: attachment to parents, attachment to school, involvement in conventional activities, and belief in the law/legal system. The goal of the present study is to fill a gap in the literature by conducting an analysis that compares Hirschi's traditional measures to contemporary measures using a single independent national sample. The present study built three models: the Traditional Hirschi Model utilizes the measures indicated by Hirschi's 1969 book, Causes of Delinquency; the Contemporary Model utilizes contemporary scales gathered from a literature review; and the Hybrid Model is an amalgamation that combines the strongest components of the two prior models.
HIRSCHI'S SOCIAL BONDING THEORY
Hirschi writes that attachment to conventional parents is a central component of control theory. Indirect parental control is theorized to be the primary mechanism that prevents delinquency. Attachment to school is also central to control theory. He defines attachment to school as how much a student likes school and has positive feelings about his/her teacher. Regarding the involvement bond, Hirschi emphasizes the importance of involvement in school-based activities such as studying. Moreover, Hirschi argues that the youth at highest risk of delinquency are those involved in the activities of working class adults. Hirschi makes the case that the belief bond is a belief in and respect for the rules of society. Thus, a weak or broken belief bond...