Contextual Complexity and Violent Delinquency among Black and White Males

Abstract

Most social scientists agree that Whites and African Americans exist in different economic, political, and social environments and assert that these “contextual” differences contribute substantially to group differencesin violence and other antisocial outcomes. This article extends these ideas into the empirical realm by using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and structural equation modeling to compare a model of violent delinquency among Black adolescents to one among White adolescents. The results from this comparative analysis illustrate how context leads to racial differences in violent delinquency.