School Transitions, Peer Processes, and Delinquency: A Social Network Approach to Turning Points in Adolescence

Objectives: We examine how normative school transitions (e.g., moves from elementary to middle school) shape adolescents’ experiences with three network processes that inform delinquency: delinquent popularity, delinquent sociability, and friend selection on shared delinquency participation. Methods: By applying stochastic actor-oriented models to a sample of panel data on 13,752 students from 26 school districts in the PROSPER study, we compare outcomes for students who change schools between 6th and 7th grade to those who remain in the same building. Results: We find that adolescents who transition schools between these grades have significantly different experiences with delinquency-related network processes when compared to their peers who do not make this change. For instance, in schools that merge students from multiple elementary schools to a single middle school, delinquent youth experience a reduction in their popularity and sociability following the school transition. These declines do not characterize the social experiences of delinquent adolescents who do not change schools during this period. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that school districts can organize transition patterns to provide youth a chance to sever harmful connections, start anew, and reduce their participation in delinquency.