Middle school girls catching up to boys in delinquency

October 5, 2005

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The gender gap for bad behavior in middle school is narrowing, with girls displaying more delinquency and aggression than their male classmates, a new University of Florida study finds.

“It’s always been the case that we expect rates of aggression and delinquency to increase for boys, while girls were considered somewhat protected,” said Julia Graber, a UF psychologist who did the research. “In this study, it’s clear that the differences between girls and boys are diminishing.”

Unlike boys, girls in the study reported feeling increasing amounts of anger between sixth and seventh grades, she said. Both groups reported a decline in self-control.

“I think it’s alarming that anger is increasing at a time when self-control is decreasing,” said Graber, an expert on puberty. “Instead of this being a time when girls are building skills, they’re feeling less able to control themselves in challenging situations.”

The study of 1,229 students at 22 public and parochial schools in New York City found that the proportion of girls committing five or more aggressive acts in a month, such as “hitting someone” or “pushing or shoving someone on purpose” jumped from 64 percent to 81 percent between sixth and seventh grades. For boys, it rose from 69 percent to 78 percent.

The share of girls committing a delinquent act during the year, such as “taking something from a store when the clerk wasn’t looking” or “throwing objects such as rocks or bottles at cars or people” increased from 66 percent to 78 percent between sixth and seventh grades, compared with a jump from 76 percent to 80 percent for boys, the study found.

“Girls’ entry into adolescence is generally thought of as a vulnerable time for depression, and studies tend to focus on girls’ emotional experiences with sadness and depressed moods,” Graber said. “What’s interesting about this study is that we see an increase in a different negative emotional experience, and that’s anger.”

A source of girls’ hostility may be the stress of dealing with peer pressure, Graber said. The middle school years tend to be extremely clique oriented, and membership in social groups often changes rapidly, with some kids being excluded unexpectedly, she said.

“Girls tend to internalize the stresses of peer relationships more so than their male counterparts, perhaps because of how we socialize women to be more relationship focused and caring about others,” she said.

The results underscore the need for prevention programs that target broader definitions of aggression among females, Graber said. Because social skills appear to be important predictors of delinquency and aggression, programs that emphasize developing these kinds of skills in addition to anger management would be useful, she said.

Intervention efforts may be particularly important as students progress through the first year of middle school, Graber said. Initially, sixth-grade teachers often provide extra support to make the transition from elementary to middle school easier, but as students are expected to become increasingly self-sufficient they may find it difficult to adjust, she said.

“There’s also the sense that once you’re in seventh grade you’re more exposed to older peers, perhaps even interacting with those who may already be engaging in problem behaviors,” she said.

Graber said it is possible the earlier onset of puberty for girls compared with boys might help explain why girls experienced such a large increase in anger between sixth and seventh grades. Further studies are needed to determine whether boys’ anger levels spike as they undergo physical and psychological changes, she said.

“We need to find out what happens that leads to this hostile emotion that kids report as almost an average experience for them,” she said. “Is it that the environment in middle school and the changes in family and peer interaction are just so stressful that kids are angry during more of their day?”

The UF study, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, also found that delinquent behavior — though not aggression — rose for students who experienced some type of family disruption upon entering middle school, such as a change in household structure. Generally, delinquency at this age might involve smaller crimes such as vandalism or shoplifting, which usually drop off fairly quickly, she said.

Patrick Tolan, director of the Institute for Juvenile Research and a psychiatry professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said Graber’s research is important in part because it shows that as gender distinctions lessen, gender differences in behavior can change. “We are seeing that delinquency and violence are not just problems of young men anymore,” he said.