Analyzing Delinquency among Kurdish Adolescents

Book excerpt: Analyzing Delinquency among Kurdish Adolescents uses Hirschi’s social bonding theory to examine the mediating effect of social bonding on delinquent behavior among Kurdish teenagers, who were used as a case study to test the usefulness of this theory. In this study, participants were selected from one Gülen movement affiliated school and one public or non-Gülen affiliated school. This study sheds light on Turkish society’s chaotic conditions in southeastern Turkey, particularly with respect to Kurdish adolescents’ involvement in the Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK). There is a lack of research regarding how Kurdish adolescents are involved in delinquent behavior as portrayed in popular Turkish media. Social bonding theory, developed and mainly tested in American and western European contexts, needs additional exploration of its efficiency in a nonwestern, especially Islamic, society. Thus, this book helps to better understand the factors that influence crime and delinquency in developing, culturally diverse social structures. Scholars in sociology, psychology, and criminology, as well as in the fields of political science, Middle Eastern studies, and education, will greatly benefit from this study.