Social-Ethnic School Composition and School Misconduct

Does Sense of Futility Clarify the Picture

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2155397
AutoresJannick Demanet (0000-0003-2770-8917, Ghent University Hospital, autor de correspondencia), Mieke Van Houtte (0000-0002-5425-6138, Ghent University Hospital)
Año2011
Volumen31
Número2
Páginas224-256
Fecha de publicación2011-02-07
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSociological Spectrum (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0273-2173 • E-ISSN: 1521-0707
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02732173.2011.541343
OpenAlexW2129051265
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas37
Referencias citadas83

This article assesses whether social-ethnic composition influences students' school misconduct. Based on general strain theory, we expect to find that individual sense of futility acts as an intermediate mechanism. Starting from cultural deprivation and oppositional culture theory, however, we hypothesize that a shared school culture of futility acts as mediator. Multilevel analyses of data from the Flemish Educational Assessment, consisting of 11,872 students in 85 schools, showed that ethnic composition has an impact on school misconduct: there is more deviance in ethnically mixed schools than in ethnic concentration schools due to a greater student sense of futility. The presence of a culture of futility did not affect the probability of being deviant. These results were true only for natives: school factors did not affect migrants' deviancy. We conclude that, although a dispersal of ethnically diverse students across all schools is favorable, this can yield negative side effects

Ethnic composition · Ethnic group · Misconduct · Political science · Sociology · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Family Dynamics and Relationships · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology