Adolescent Deviance and Cyber-Deviance. A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Deviance is a complex phenomenon that influences aspects both at the macro and micro levels, extensively studied by social scientists The main objective of this article was to conduct a systematic literature review for clustering the topics on adolescent deviance and online deviance. Grounded in Pickering's and Byrne's guidelines and PRISMA protocol, we identified the most recurrent themes, theories and predictors in the 61 most-cited articles related to the concept of deviance from the database of Web of Science, as well as in 488 abstracts of representative papers. The results emphasized four main clusters of topics, namely, predictors of deviance, online deviance, socio-constructivist theories, and research based theories of deviant behavior. The findings highlighted that researchers frequently use strain theory, social learning, self-control, and social control theories in their studies. Our systematic literature review revealed also the most encountered predictors of deviance, which we have classified into five main categories: family patterns, socio-demographic aspects, socialization, victimization, and school and individual factors. For online deviance, family patterns, socio-demographic aspects, victimization, school and individual factors, and Internet and computer use have been determined to be the main groups of predictors. The present systematic literature review makes an important contribution to the understanding of deviance by presenting an overview of the phenomenon.