Metod, Kriminologi II

Handledning av kandidat- och masterupssatser

Brottsprevention, termin 4

Min avhandling handlade om skoltillhörighetens betydelse för allvarliga vålds- och stöldbrott bland ungdomar. Utgångspunkten var behovet av att komplettera det dominerande individorienterade perspektivet på relationen mellan skola och brott utifrån en mer socio-strukturell ansats med fokus på brott som ett kontextuellt fenomen. Kontextuella teorier i kombination med flernivåanalys som statistisk metod användes i syfte att studera betydelsen av individuella och skolkontextuella aspekter var för sig samt interaktionen de emellan i relation till brott.

I januari 2023 påbörjar jag ett nytt forskningsprojekt, finansierat av FORTE, som delvis syftar till att kvalitativt fördjupa några av de kvantitativa resultaten i avhandlingen men med fokus på lärare, skolpersonal och brottsprevention istället för på elever och brott. Skolan är den samhälleliga institution som ofta får representera nyckeln till framgång i det brottsförebyggande arbetet. En rimlig prioritering, givet den stora mängd forskning som visar på kopplingar mellan skolmisslyckanden och brott. Vad som däremot saknas i forskningen på området är kunskap om hur dessa brottsförebyggande mål och uppdrag tas emot av de aktörer som förväntas utföra arbetet i praktiken. Lärare och skolpersonal har sällan tillhandahållits resurser och kvalifikationer för den utökade uppgiften att förebygga brott. Dessutom har den svenska skolan genomgått dramatiska strukturella förändringar de senaste decennierna som har försvårat skolans kompensatoriska uppdrag. Mot bakgrund av dessa omständigheter syftar mitt postdokprojekt till att undersöka hur brottsförebyggande initiativ riktade mot skolan tas emot, tolkas och praktiseras av skolpersonal.

I urval från Stockholms universitets publikationsdatabas

• School Variation in Offending

  Julia Sandahl. European Journal of Criminology

  Artikel

  This study employs Macro-Level Strain Theory (MST) as a framework to provide a better understanding of the way in which the structural and social context of Stockholm schools covaries with self-reported violent and general offending. The findings contribute to the literature in this area by directing a special focus at the interplay between the theory’s macro-level components and some individual-level mechanisms that may be assumed to condition the effect of strain on offending. Using multi-level data on 5,274 students nested in 90 schools in the city of Stockholm, the study notes significant contextual effects of anger and life dissatisfaction on offending. School-level deprivation appears to have a confounding effect on the relationship between school-contextual negative affect and offending. Further, school-contextual anger influences some individuals more than others. Implications of these findings are discussed.   

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• Hope, trust and segregation in schools: An analysis of contextual effects on violent and general offending

  2021. Julia Sandahl. British Journal of Criminology 61 (5), 1261-1281

  Artikel

  Influenced by the theoretical concepts of ‘Relative deprivation’ and ‘Social cohesion’, this study adds to the relatively limited literature of socio-structural approaches to the school–crime relationship. Multilevel analysis was conducted to explore the independent and interactive effects ofthree distinct features of the school setting—concentrated (dis)advantage, the proportion of students with poor future prospects and teacher-rated social cohesion—in relation to self-reported offending. Using information from three data sources on 4,608 students and 1,056 teachers from 77 lower secondary schools in Stockholm, the results showed that school concentrated (dis)advantageand school-level future prospects were directly related to offending. In addition, cross-level interactionsindicate that the association between student performance and offending differs dependingon school type.

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• Juvenile Crime in Context: The Significance of School Affiliation

  2021. Julia Sandahl.

  Avhandling (Dok)

  Within criminology, research on the school-crime relationship has been dominated by individual-level theories and methods. This thesis contributes to the relatively scarce literature focused on the socio-structural aspects of juvenile crime by applying a multidimensional approach to the urban school context of Stockholm. By combining contextual criminological theories of crime with a multilevel methodological approach, the overall aim of the thesis is to extend the empirical knowledge on the importance of school affiliation for involvement in crime among adolescents. Student and teacher survey data and register data on the student sociodemographic composition in schools are analyzed to explore whether and why levels of more serious forms of self-reported offending vary between schools.

  Although the three empirical studies included in this thesis have their own specific scopes and research questions, they are all concerned with juvenile crime as a contextual phenomenon, exploring whether serious offending varies between Stockholm schools, and the importance of the social context in relation to offending (Study I), how much of the school-level variation in offending can be ascribed to certain aspects of the structural and the social context of schools respectively (Study II), and whether certain individual-level associations differ depending on school type (Study III). In addition, Studies II and III also explore contextual associations between offending and both structural and social aspects of the school setting.

  The results contribute to advancing the understanding of the school-crime association by considering the classic sociological idea that social context shapes individual behavior. More specifically, the findings indicate that there are systematic differences in self-reported offending between Stockholm schools and that most of this variation can be explained by structural mechanisms related to student composition. Besides making visible the interrelationship between the structural and social context in relation to offending, the findings also show that some individual-level associations vary from one school setting to another. Several implications for theory and practice are discussed. For example, it is suggested that the structural context should not be ignored in attempts to understand the school-crime relationship. In addition, and in relation to this, it is argued that there is a need for a shift towards a more realistic view of schools as potential arenas for crime prevention.

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