Krohn et al. (2011). The Cascading Effects of Adolescent Gang Research Paper

Krohn et al. (2011). The Cascading Effects of Adolescent Gang Incolvement across the Life Course - Research Paper Example What is specifically meant by adult life chances is a satisfactory family life and economic well-being at the age ranging from late 20s to early 30s. And what is meant by adult criminal behavior is persistent criminal behavior at the age of 31. What concept represents the independent variable(s) in this article and what is the conceptual definition of this concept discussed by the authors? The independent variable in this study is gang involvement in adolescence. Gang involvement is defined as a self report of being a member of any street gang or â€Å"posse† between the age of 14 to 31 and the level of gang involvement is measured in terms of the number of waves in which a particular individual was involved with a gang between the age of 14 to 31. What concept represents the dependent variable(s) in this article and what is the conceptual definition of this concept discussed by the authors? The dependent variables in this study are precocious transitions, economic hardship, f amily problems, street crime and arrest. The concept of precocious transitions is defined as to include any, some, or all of the behaviors- early nest leaving (no longer resides with parents by wave 9), dropping out from high school prior to graduation (not graduated by wave 10), cohabitation (not married yet living with a partner when the individual is between 20 and 22 years of age) and teenage parenthood (had a child before the age of 20). Economic hardship is defined as to include unemployment (at 29 years of age) and income pattern (at 29 years of age). The concept of family problems is defined as to include scores corresponding to arguing, lose tempers, and physical fights at wave 13. The concept of street crime relates to the individual scores corresponding to being involved at the age of 31, in any of the 13 different street crimes listed. The concept of arrest is defined as self-reported arrest during 13th or 14th wave. What are the null and research hypotheses related to t his research question? The null hypothesis for this study is that there is no relationship between gang involvement in adolescence and life chances and criminal behavior in adulthood. The research hypothesis is that it is involvement in a gang that impacts an individual male’s life chances and eventually leads to criminal behavior as he matures into adulthood. Sample, Research Design and Data Collection Describe the sample (who or what was used and how they were selected) used in this study. The sample used in this study was the data from Rochester Youth Development Study which was a multi-wave panel study on how delinquency and drug use developed among the youth. This (RYDS) study had collected 14 waves of data from 1000 adolescents as they grew from 14 to 31 years of age and the study by Krohn et al (2011) has used the same data by way of a longitudinal analysis of data gathered from males alone which was not done by the original study. What type of research design did the authors use in this study and how was it structured? The research design was based on the structural equation model that allows to have an approximate measurement of cause-effect relationships, all the same leaving enough space for taking into account the estimation error. The design was structured so as to measure both the observed and latent variables. The two-step process involved