Parenting Styles and Gang Membership: Mediating Factors

While literature suggests that parenting has direct and indirect effects on gang membership, mediating effects have been established for the relationship between unidimensional parenting variables and gang involvement. This study fills the gap in the literature by examining how multidimensional parenting styles affect gang membership, and which factors mediate this relationship. The logistic regression models indicate a negative relationship between authoritative parenting and gang involvement, and a positive relationship between authoritarian, neglectful, and permissive parenting and gang membership. The analyses show that delinquent peers, self-control, rationalizations, and guilt are complete or partial mediators of parenting styles and gang membership.