Doctoral Dissertation Research: A Multilevel Analysis of Youth Crime

在这个项目中，学校层面、邻里层面和个人层面的变量对青少年犯罪的影响使用了一个结合了多层次调查和人口普查的数据集进行了分析。这项研究通过考虑青少年的决策能力，并通过对21世纪美国不同地区的青少年进行调查，解决了当代社会青少年犯罪的复杂问题。它认为当代青少年犯罪是青少年生活中的决策与各种社会背景相互作用的产物，包括学校环境、邻里环境、家庭动态等重要领域。该项目的成果将有助于制定减少青少年犯罪战略的建议，并将促进社会学家、犯罪学家、教育工作者、决策者和其他利益攸关方之间在预防青少年犯罪战略方面的合作。这项分析将使用一个独特的数据集，该数据集结合了最近对美国几个大都市地区(ISRD，浪潮III)40所学校的2000多名初中生和高中生进行的多层次调查数据，美国人口普查和国家教育统计中心。将使用不同类型的量化分析，如多层次建模，以解决预测因素对青少年犯罪的跨层次交互影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In this project, the effects of school-level, neighborhood-level, and individual level variables on youth crime are analyzed using a dataset that is combined from a multi-level survey and the Census. This study addresses the complex issue of adolescent crime in contemporary society by taking into account youth capacity to make decisions and by examining adolescents in different areas in the U.S. in the 21st century. It considers contemporary adolescent crime as a product of the interrelationship between decision-making and various social contexts in youth life including school environment, neighborhood milieu, family dynamics, and other important domains. Results from this project will help develop recommendations for youth crime reduction strategies and will facilitate collaborations between sociologists, criminologists, educators, decision makers, and other stakeholders on strategies concerning adolescent crime prevention. This analysis will use a unique dataset constructed by combining data from a recently conducted multi-level survey of over 2,000 middle and high school students from 40 schools in several metropolitan areas in the U. S. (ISRD, Wave III), the U.S. Census, and the National Center for Education Statistics. Different types of quantitative analyses will be employed, such as multi-level modeling, to address the cross-level interactional effects of predictors on adolescent crime.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.