The impacts of parenting and senior high school students' self-concepts on delinquency in Taiwan metropolitan areas

The main purpose of this study was to compare the impact of parenting with that of the senior high school students' self-concepts on the delinquent behavior in Taiwan metropolitan areas. Secondarily, this research was also constructed to evaluate the effects of the students' self-concepts on the relationship between parenting and delinquency. In this study, the students' self-concepts mainly focused on their 'moral direction', 'self-esteem', and 'ego-resilience'. The valid sample subjects, 784 senior high school students, were selected from Taipei, Taichung, and Kaohsiung metropolitan school districts with a random stratified-cluster method. And the nested regression method was used to analyze the collected data. The findings of this study show: (1) parental caring, parenting and moral direction have direct effects on the students' delinquent behavior; (2) compared with the students' self-concepts, parental caring is more contributive in predicting the development of the students' delinquency; (3) moral direction plays a significant role, influencing the relationship between the parenting and the students' delinquency.