Contexts of Risk? Explaining the Link between Girls' Pubertal Development and Their Delinquency Involvement

Although early and more advanced pubertal development has been linked to adolescent girls' delinquency involvement, the social factors that mediate these relationships have not been established. This study incorporates parent and peer relationship measures from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to examine (1) whether parents treat more physically developed daughters differently than their less developed peers, and (2) whether more developed girls are located in friendship networks that are more conducive to delinquency than the networks of less developed girls. Earlier pubertal development and more advanced development are associated with three types of delinquency: "party" deviance, minor delinquency, and serious delinquency. The strength of the association is strongest for "party" deviance (e.g., drinking, smoking, truancy, disorderly conduct). Conflict with parents, trust and autonomy from parents, exposure to peer deviance, and involvement in romantic relationships mediate the puberty-delinquency association. However, the relative importance of each of these mechanisms varies by the context of delinquency and the indicators of pubertal development that are used.