The Role of Siblings in Adolescent Delinquency Next to Parents, School, and Peers: Do Gender and Age Matter?

Twan Huijsmans*, Veroni I. Eichelsheim, Frank Weerman, Susan J.T. Branje, Wim Meeus

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Purpose: This study aimed to explore whether and how sibling delinquency affects adolescent delinquency, over and beyond the effects of other social domains such as parents, school, and peers, and whether this sibling effect is time-varying over the course of adolescence. Methods: Six waves of data from the “Research on Adolescents Development And Relationships-Younger cohort” (RADAR-Y) were analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) techniques. Besides an overall model, separate models were tested for the periods of early and late adolescence respectively, in which we accounted for differences in sibling pair composition with regard to gender and age. Results: Sibling’s delinquency was shown to be positively related to adolescent delinquency in early adolescence, only for sister and mixed-sex sibling pairs, but these effects disappeared in later adolescence. In brother pairs, an opposite pattern was observed: sibling delinquency was not related to delinquent behavior in early adolescence, whereas it was in late adolescence. Conclusion: Sibling’s delinquency explains part of adolescents’ delinquency in early adolescence, beyond the influence exerted by peers, parents, and school. Analyzing early and late adolescence in separate models provided a more detailed insight in the influence of sibling’s delinquency over time, and controlling for sex composition reveals that development of sibling similarity in delinquency differs between brothers, sisters, and mixed-sex sibling pairs.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)220-242
Number of pages23
JournalJournal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology
Volume5
Issue number2
Early online date23 Oct 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Jun 2019

Funding

FundersFunder number
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk OnderzoekGB-MAGW 480-03-005, 024.001.003, GB-MAGW 480-08-006

    Keywords

    • Adolescents’ delinquency
    • RADAR-Y
    • Sibling delinquency
    • Social bonds

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'The Role of Siblings in Adolescent Delinquency Next to Parents, School, and Peers: Do Gender and Age Matter?'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this