Alienation

The Role of the Antisocial Family in School Completion and Delinquency: A Three-Generation
Study
Author(s): Lee N. Robins and Ruth Gilman Lewis
Source: The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 4 (Autumn, 1966), pp. 500-514
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Midwest Sociological Society
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The Role of the Antisocial Family in School
Completionand Delinquency:A Three-Genera-
tion Study
LEE N. ROBINSand RUTHGILMANLEWIS, Washington

University
THE OBSERVATION that deviant children have deviant parents has

been made in a near-astronomical number of studies.' The path to
this conclusion has almost always been through the comparison of
parents of deviant children (particularly juvenile delinquents) with
parents of control subjects. Studies which have proceeded from the
other end-i.e., by using the parents as the index case in order to
estimate the probability that deviant behavior in the parent will
be reflected in the child's behavior-have been negligible in num-
ber. Among the rare studies of this kind are Anne Roe's study of
children of alcoholics, Wilson's study of delinquency in children
whose parents were referred for child neglect, Geismar's study of
juvenile delinquency in "multiproblem" families, and Lewis' study
of mental illness in the offspring of mentally ill parents.2 Studies
* Research funds were provided by the National Institute of Mental Health
(Grant M-1400), by a National Institute of Mental Health Student Research fellow-
ship, and by the Foundation's Fund for Research in Psychiatry.
1 Most common among studies relating deviance in children to parental deviance
are studies that associate juvenile delinquency or crime with defective child-rearing
behavior of the parents: e.g., Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck, Unraveling Juvenile De-
linquency (New York: The Commonwealth Fund, 1950); F. Ivan Nye, Family Re-
lationships and Delinquent Behavior (New York: John Wiley, 1958); William and
Joan McCord, Origins of Crime (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1959). Family
studies of alcoholism, on the other hand, have concentrated not on child-rearing pat-
terns but rather on parents' drinking behavior, criminality, and psychiatric disorders:
e.g., Curt Amark, "A Study in Alcoholism," Acta Psychiatrica et Neurologica Scandi-
navica, Supplementum 70 (1951); and Manfred Bleuler, "Familial and Personal Back-
ground of Chronic Alcoholics," in Oskar Diethelm, ed., Etiology of Chronic Alco-
holism (Springfield, Ill.: Charles C Thomas, 1955). Studies of parents of psychiatric
patients have, in general, attempted to ascertain how often the parents had the same
psychiatric illness: e.g., Eliot Slater, "The Inheritance of Manic-Depressive Insanity,"
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, vol. 29 (Feb., 1936); M. E. Cohen,
D. W. Badal, A. Kilpatrick,E. W. Reed, and P. D. White, "The High Familial Prev-
alence of Neurocirculatory Asthenia," Amer. J. Hum. Genet., vol. 3 (Anxiety Neu-
rosis, Effort Syndrome).
2Anne Roe and Barbara Burks, "Adult Adjustment of Foster Children of Alco-
holic and Psychotic Parentage and the Influence of the Foster Home," Quarterly
Journal of Studies on Alchohol Monograph (New Haven, Conn., 1945); Harriett
5oo

Antisocial Families: A Three-GenerationStudy 501
which start with parents as index cases produce a different kind of

information from those which start with children. Studies begin-
ning with children ask, "How often do deviant children have de-
viant parents?" The answer to this question is used to decide the
relative importance of parental deviance as compared with other
factors in the genesis of problems in children. Studies beginning
with parents ask, "How frequently do deviant parents produce de-
viant children?" The latter question is the one that must be an-
swered if we are to estimate the risk involved in allowing deviant
parents to continue to procreate and rear their children at their
current level of independence from interference or if we are to
have a base line against which to measure the effectiveness of efforts
to improve the socialization of children whose birth into problem
families predestines them to a high rate of problem behavior.
There is a third question, one which almost no serious attempts
have been made to answer, about the effect of the larger family
context on the child's behavior." Are deviant patterns in relatives
outside the immediate family predictive of deviant behavior in
children?
It is the purpose of this paper to make a small-scale attempt at
discussing this last question and to add to the scanty studies con-
cerning the expected rate of problem behavior in the offspring of
problem parents. In particular, this paper will explore the following
questions:
1. What is the incidence of educational and legal problems
among the sons of ex--child-guidance clinic patients and normal
control subjects?
2. Does the parent's juvenile arrest and failure to graduate from
high school predict similar behavior in his son?
3. Do the four kinship roles, father, mother, grandfather, grand-
mother, vary in the impact which adult antisocial behavior on the
part of the role occupant has on a boy's behavior?
4. Does a family highly saturated with antisocial persons have
Wilson, Delinquency and Child Neglect (London: Allen and Unwin, 1962); Ludwig
L. Geismar and Beverly Ayres, "Families in Trouble" (St. Paul, Minn.: Family Cen-
tered Project, Greater St. Paul Community Chest and Councils, Inc., 1958), mimeo-
graphed; A. J. Lewis, "The Offspring of Parents Both Mentally Ill," Acta Genet.,
7:349-65 (1957).
SThe most spectacular exception to the absence of such studies is J6n Lave
Karlsson'ssix-generation family study of the occurrence of schizophrenia: "The Lon-
gitudinal Family Distribution of Schizophrenia,"Hereditas Genetiskt Arkiv., 52:127-
38 (1964). The inclusion of so many relatives was possible because of combining
geographic stability and the long history of excellent record-keeping in Iceland.

502 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY
more impact than a family in which fewer members are antisocial?

5. Does having antisocial relatives distributed over the two
ascendant generations have a greater effect than having them
within one generation?
6. Does the sex of the antisocial relative matter?
Methods
In the course of a thirty-year follow-up study of 524 child guidance
clinic patients and 100 school children controls, matched for age,
sex, race, IQ, and socioeconomic status,4 subjects were asked for
the names, sex, and ages of their children. Of all the children re-
ported, only 67 were found to be boys brought up in St. Louis, who
by 1960 would be 18 years of age or older. These 67 boys were the
sons of 54 subjects, 39 ex-patients and 15 control subjects. While
their number was small, unusual kinds of data were available for
these 67 boys. Their names could be checked through police and
juvenile court records to learn whether or not they had been ar-
rested, and for 60 it was possible to locate their school records. A
long, intensive interview had been conducted with one of their
parents, an interview which obtained information about adult de-
viant behavior in both the index parent and the boy's other parent
and about deviant behavior on the part of the parents of the index
parent (the boy's grandparents) when the index parent was a child.
These interview data had been verified and amended by extensive
searches of the records of agencies such as hospitals, police, prisons,
and welfare. For 73 per cent of the index parents, there was avail-
able a very detailed child guidance clinic record dating from an
average age of 13, at which time not only the parent's deviant be-
havior as a child was explored, but also deviant behavior of his
parents (the grandparents of the subject's son). Only the absence
of information about grandparents on the other side of the family
marred the set of data concerning three generations, obtained from
interviews or objective records.
Boys over 18 who had lived in St. Louis were selected for study
because (1) boys are known to have much higher rates of problem
behavior than girls; (2) being over 18, they would be past juvenile
court age and would have finished high school; and (3) being
brought up in St. Louis, they would all have been exposed to the
same law enforcement policies.
4 The study is reported in Lee N. Robins, The Adult Life of Deviant Children
(Baltimore, Md.: Williams & Wilkins, 1966).

For each son and his index parent, school records were sought
from public, private, and parochial schools, and juvenile arrest rec-
ords were sought in city and county police files and juvenile court
records. For each parent and grandparent, the presence of adult
antisocial behavior was determined by the report of any of the
following behaviors in interview or in the records mentioned above:
arrests, excessive drinking, absenteeism and poor work record not
attributable to physical disability, desertion, failure to support (for
men), neglect of the children and household (for women), physical
aggression and cruelty toward the family, extreme extravagance or
persistent gambling, and extramarital sexual relations. The presence
or absence of antisocial behavior was scored for both parents and
for one set of grandparents.
The questions raised above will be answered by relating the
boy's graduation and arrest record to information about whether
his index parent as a child had been a patient of a psychiatric clinic
or control subject, had or had not graduated from high school, and
had or had not been arrested, and about whether his grandparents
and parents as adults had shown antisocial behavior.
Findings
As can be seen in Table 1, 48 per cent of the boys studied gradu-
ated from high school and 19 per cent had juvenile arrests. None of
the boys with juvenile arrests whose school records were located
had graduated. (No school record was found for two of the ar-
rested boys.) Fewer sons of the ex-child-guidance patients than of
control subjects graduated from high school (40 per cent compared
to 73 per cent) and more of them were arrested (24 per cent com-
pared to 6 per cent), but differences were below statistical signifi-
cance.
TABLE 1. GRADUATION AND ARRESTS OF SONS OF CHILD-GUIDANCE

CLINIC PATIENTS AND MATCHED CONTROL SUBJECTS
GRADUATING FROM ARRESTED BEFORE
HIGH SCHOOL AGE 18
SONS
Percentage N Cases Percentage N Cases
Total 48 60 19 67
Of child-guidance clinic patients 40 45 ?4 49
Of control subjects 73 15 6 18
X' = 3.76 p < .10* 1.92 p < .20
X,-=
* All probabilities are for two-tailed tests, and all calculations based on fourfold
tables include a correction for continuity.

Those parents who as children had been referred to the child

guidance clinic had usually been referred for antisocial behavior
serious enough to lead to their arrestsas juveniles and to interfere
with their completionof high school. Among the 39 5 index parents
referred to the clinic, 25 (64 per cent) had had juvenile arrests,
compared with only two (13 per cent) of the 15 control parents.
Only two (5 per cent) of the ex-patientshad graduatedfrom high
TABLE 2. INDEX PARENTS' JUVENILE ARRESTS AND

GRADUATION FROM HIGH SCHOOL AND THE
ARRESTS AND GRADUATION OF THEIR SONS
PARENTS'JUVENILE HISTORY BEHAVIOROF SONS
Percentage
Graduation Graduating N Cases
Total Index Parents
High school graduates 86 7
Not high school graduates 48 53
Child Guidance Patients
Control Subjects
Percentage
Arrests Arrested N Cases
Total Index Parents
Arrested as juveniles 17 35
Not arrested as juveniles 2 32
Child Guidance Patients
Control Subjects
school compared with five (33 per cent) of the control parents.
One might wonder whether the higher proportionof patients'sons
failing to graduate and being arrestedwas not merely an echo of
the childhood problemsof their problem parents, albeit somewhat
attentuated in this second generation.But this interpretationdoes
not stand up (Table 2). While index parents' graduationdid ap-
pear related to their sons' graduation,no relation was found be-
5 These 39 index parents had 49 sons in the study. Fifteen index parents who
were control subjects had eighteen sons in the study.

tween parents'juvenile arrestsand their sons'.And within the con-

trol group, even graduationof the index parents did not predict
the son's graduation.Among sons of nongraduates,more sons of
control subjects graduatedthan did sons of patients (70 per cent
comparedto 87 per cent).
Since the differencebetween sons of ex-patientsof a child guid-
ance clinic and control subjects with respect to graduation and
arrests was below statistical significance in the first place, and
could not be satisfactorilyexplained as a repetition of the index
parent'schildhood behavior,explanationsof these boys' arrestsand
failures to graduatewere sought in the adult antisocialbehavior of
their relatives. Three of the striking findings from the previous
study of the total ex-patient and control groups (which included
the index parentsof these boys) was (1) the high rate of antisocial
behavior on the parents of children seen in the child guidance
clinic (the grandparentsof these boys); (2) the high rate of adult
antisocialbehavior in subjectswho had been referredto the clinic
as children (the index parentswho were ex-patients); (3) and the
frequency with which these ex-patients married spouses with be-
havior problems (the other parent of these boys). It was expected
in the present study then, that more of the sons of patients than
of control subjects would have antisocial grandparentsand two
antisocial parents. The presence of those antisocial relatives might
predict arrestsand failure to graduate and thereby explain the dif-
ferences found above between the offspringof patients and control
subjects.
These expectationswere fulfilled. Only 33 per cent of the sons
of control subjectshad an antisocialparent or grandparent,but 74
per cent of the sons of patients did. Without antisocial relatives,
77 per cent of the sons of ex-patients graduated and none was
arrested,an ever better recordthan that found for the sons of con-
trol subjects. It seemed reasonable,then, to drop the consideration
of whether parents had been control subjects or patients and
whether parents had graduated and had juvenile arrests, and to
study the constellationof antisocial relatives as the importantfac-
tor in explaining failure to graduate and juvenile arrests in these
boys.
As can be seen in Table 3, antisocial behavior in the relatives
appeared strongly related to failure to graduate and also (if less
strongly) related to the likelihood of juvenile arrests. When either

506 THESOCIOLOGICAL
QUARTERLY
a parent or grandparentwas antisocial, only 30 per cent of the

boys graduated from high school and 29 per cent had an arrest.
When no parent or grandparentwas antisocial,78 per cent of the
boys graduated and only one (4 per cent) was arrested. Interest-
TABLE 3. GRADUATION AND JUVENILE ARRESTS OF BOYS AS
RELATED TO ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR IN THEIR PARENTS
AND GRANDPARENTS
Boys
ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR IN Graduating from
PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS High School With Juvenile Arrests

Total 48 60 19 67
Any of the 4 relatives 30 37 29 42
None of the 4 relatives 78 23 4 25
X2 = 11.50 p < .001 X' = 4.58 p = <.05
Either grandparent 19 31 33 36
Neither grandparent 79 29 3 31
X' = 19.69 p = <.001 X2 = 7.82 p < .01
Either parent 29 24 28 28
Neither parent 61 36 13 39
X2 = 4.67 p = <.05 n. s.
Grandfather 19 27 31 32
Not grandfather 73 33 9 35
X2=15.37 p < .001 Xt= 4.14 p < .05
Father 24 21 32 25
Not father 62 39 12 42
X2 = 6.34 p = <.02 X'= 2.86 p = <.10
Grandmother 14 14 29 14
Not grandmother 59 46 17 53
X2 = 6.86 p < .01 n. s.
Mother 23 13 24 17
Not mother 55 47 18 50
X2= 8.04 p < .10 n. s.
ingly enough, having an antisocial grandparentbetter predicted
both failure to graduate and arreststhan did having an antisocial
parent.
Among the four relatives studied, antisocial behavior in the
grandfather seemed to have the gravest effect on graduation
chances, and only in the grandfatherdid antisocialbehaviorpredict
arrests significantly.Antisocial behavior in the grandmotherwas
related to graduationbut not to arrests.Antisocialbehavior in the
mother appeared to have the least effect on both graduationand
arrests.
The striking influenceof the grandfathermight be attributable
not to his influenceper se, but to the constellationof relativesanti-
social when the grandfatherwas. To test his effect properly, one

would need to compare graduation and arrest rates of boys whose

grandfathers were antisocial with these rates, not for all other boys,
as done in Table 3, but for boys with the same constellation of
other antisocial relatives. Unfortunately, boys rarely had other an-
tisocial relatives when the grandfather was not antisocial. Of the
twelve boys with three antisocial relatives out of four, the grand-
father was among the three in every case; of the ten boys with two
antisocial relatives the grandfather was one of the two in all but
three cases. Only when the boy had only one antisocial relative
were there enough cases when that relative was not the grandfather
to allow comparisons. Of the 16 boys with only one antisocial rela-
tive, nine had an antisocial grandfather; seven had one of the other
three relatives antisocial. When the one antisocial relative was the
grandfather, only 37 per cent graduated, and 33 per cent were ar-
rested. When the one relative was not the grandfather, 71 per cent
graduated and none was arrested. With so few cases, differences
were not statistically significant, but antisocial behavior in the
grandfather did seem to have a greater influence on the boy's ar-
rests and graduation than did such behavior in any other relative.
The number of relatives antisocial seemed as important as which
relatives were antisocial (Table 4). The relationship between grad-
TABLE 4. THE EFFECT OF NUMBER OF ANTISOCIAL ANTECEDENTS
ON THE BOY'S GRADUATION AND ARREST
Boys
NUMBER OF ANTISOCIAL
RELATIVES Graduating from
(out of two parents and High School Arrested
two grandparents)
All four 0 4 25 4
Three 12 8 25 12
Two 20 10 50 10
One 53 15 19 16
None 78 23 4 25
Combining the upper X = 18.91 df=2 X2 = 7.64 df=2
three categories to
avoid small cells p < .001 p < .05
uation and number of relatives antisocial was regular, the addition

of each antisocial relative accompanied by a further decline in
graduation rates. For arrests, the absence of antisocial relatives pre-
dicted freedom from arrests, but once there was an antisocial rela-
tive, the number was not related to arrests in any regular way.

A third factor in graduation appeared to be the presence of

antisocial behavior in both ascendant generations (Table 5). When
boys had an antisocial relative in both the parental and grandpa-
TABLE 5. NUMBER OF ASCENDANT GENERATIONS ANTISOCIAL AND

BOYS' GRADUATION AND ARRESTS
Boys
ANTISOCIALRELATIVES Graduated Arrested

Two generations 11 18 86 22
four persons 0 4 25 4
three persons 12 8 25 12
two persons 17 6 67 6
One generation 47 19 20 20
two persons 25 4 25 4
one person 58 15 19 16
grandparental 31 13 29 14
parental 83 6 0 6
Neither 78 23 4 25
One generation vs. two X 2= 4.21 p < .05 n. 8.
rental generations, only 11 per cent graduated; in only one ascend-

ant generation, 47 per cent graduated. A difference in the same
direction appeared with respect to juvenile arrests, but was not
statistically significant. The greater effect of the two-generation
history of antisocial behavior appeared in part to result from the
fact that antisocial behavior in two generations inevitably includes
antisocial behavior in the grandparents. When antisocial behavior
occurred only in the grandparental generation, graduation rates
were lower and arrest rates higher than when it occurred only in
the parental generation. In fact, boys with only parents antisocial
had no worse arrest and no better graduation records than did boys
without antisocial relatives. Two generations, however, still ap-
peared to have more impact than either generation alone, since
fewer boys graduated and more were arrested with members of
the two ascendant generations antisocial than with grandparents
only.
The influence of number of relatives antisocial on boys' gradua-
tion appears to persist when the number of generations is taken
into account. As before, number of antisocial relatives makes little
difference with respect to arrests, so long as any are antisocial.
The final question we wished to ask is whether the apparently

greater impact on graduation of antisocial behavior in the father

than in the mother and in the grandfather than in the grandmother
indicates that male relatives play a greater role in boys' behavior
than do female relatives.
In Table 6, having only male relatives antisocial appears to have
more impact on graduation and arrest than having only female rela-
TABLE 6. SEX OF RELATIVE WITH ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR IN
RELATION TO BOYS' BEHAVIOR
Boys
ANTISOCIALRELATIVES Graduating Arrested
BOTHMALEAND FEMALE 11 19 80 23
four 0 4 25 4
three 12 8 25 12
two 14 7 43 7
two generations 7 15 82 19
one generation 25 4 25 4
ONLYMALE 43 14 33 15
two (and two generations) 33 3 67 3
one (and one generation) 46 11 25 12
ONLYFEMALE 75 4 0 4
two (and two generations)
one (and one generation) 75 4 0 4
NONE 78 23 4 25
Both male and female
compared to male or X2=5.18 p < .05 n. 8.
female only
tives antisocial. When only female relatives were antisocial (a rare

event, occurring in only four cases), the graduation and arrest rec-
ords were as good as when no relatives were antisocial. But for
graduation, having both male and female antisocial relatives has
the greatest impact of all. With both a male and a female antisocial
relative, only 11 per cent of the boys graduated as compared with
43 per cent when only male relatives were antisocial, and 75 per
cent when only female relatives were antisocial. With respect to
arrests, the addition of an antisocial mother or grandmother to an
antisocial male relative makes no difference.
Since having both male and female antisocial relatives implies
having at least two antisocial relatives out of the four and permits
having all four, while a single-sex set can consist of a single relative
and cannot involve more than two out of the four, the importance
of having antisocial relatives of both sexes might simply have been
the result of the boys with antisocial relatives of both sexes having
more antisocial relatives and more often having antisocial relatives

in both antecedent generations. However, even matched on number

of relatives and number of generations, having antisocial relatives
of both sexes appears to be associated with less frequent high school
graduation. Numbers of cases were so small, however, that it cannot
be ruled out that the two-sex effect might be a spurious conse-
quence of having more antisocial relatives or two generations of
antisocial relatives.
We have found, then, four variables that seemed important in
predicting boys' graduation: whether a grandfather was antisocial,
how many relatives were antisocial, whether antisocial behavior
occurred in both ascendant generations, and whether antisocial be-
havior occurred in both male and female relatives. These factors
were each less striking in predicting juvenile arrests than gradua-
tion, but the antisocial grandfather and the occurrence of two gen-
erations antisocial rather than one did appear to have some rela-
tionship to juvenile arrests. The cumulative effect of these variables
on graduation can be seen in Table 7. When all four of these fac-
tors were present, only 8 per cent of boys graduated; with two or
TABLE 7. RELATION OF NUMBER OF PREDICTORS TO GRADUATION

AND ARREST
GRADUATED ARRESTED
FORBOYSWITH
PREDICTORS*
Any antisocial relatives 80 37 29 42

all four 8 12 25 16
two or three 11 9 56 9
one 44 9 80 10
none 71 7 0 7
No antisocial relatives 78 23 4 25
* Predictors are antisocial behavior in (1) grandfather, (2) three or four relatives,
(3) both generations, (4) both male and female relatives.
three factors present, 11 per cent graduated; with one of these

factors present, 44 per cent graduated, and with none of them, 71
per cent graduated even though at least one relative was antisocial.
No cumulative pattern emerged with respect to arrests, although
only one boy without any of these factors present was arrested.
Three of these four factors are obviously highly interrelated.
The more relatives antisocial, the more likely they are to include
both generations and both sexes. If antisocial behavior in the grand-
father were also associated with number of relatives, number of
generations, and number of sexes antisocial, these factors might all
be seen as simply the effect of cumulating experiences with anti-

social relatives, with the greatest effect occurring when the greatest
number and variety of kinship roles include antisocial persons. In-
terestingly enough, however, the presence of antisocial behavior
in the grandfather was inversely related to number of relatives,
number of generations, and number of sexes antisocial (Table 8).
TABLE 8. THE PARTICULAR RELATIVE ANTISOCIAL AS RELATED TO
THE TOTAL NUMBER OF ANTISOCIAL RELATIVES, THE NUMBER OF
GENERATIONS ANTISOCIAL, AND THE SEX OF THE
ANTISOCIAL RELATIVES
Boys WITH PARTICULAR RELATIVE ANTISOCIAL
Grandfather Grandmother Father Mother

32 Cases 14 Cases 25 Cases 17 Cases
Mean numberof antisocial
relatives (out of four) 2.34 2.64 2.68 2.88
Percentage with antisocial
relatives in both generations 62 64 84 82
Percentage with antisocial
relatives in both sexes 62 86 76 88
Boys with an antisocial grandfather averaged fewer antisocial rela-

tives than did boys with any other antisocial relative, less often had
antisocial relatives in both generations, and less often had antisocial
relatives of both sexes. The effect of the antisocial grandfather could
not then be explained by the other three variables. Nor could it be
explained by the sex of the index parent. The grandfather was the
most influential, whether the index parent was male or female.
One further question remained. The effect of the antisocial
grandfather and father on graduation and arrests might occur not
because of any direct influence on the boy but because antisocial
men earn little and either fail to rise out of the lower classes or
drop into them as a result of their poor employment records." It
is well known that adult antisocial behavior is more common in the
lower classes and that juvenile arrests and failure to graduate from
high school are also more common. The question, then, is whether
the pattern of antisocial relatives described above predicts failure
to graduate and juvenile arrests independently of social class status.
Antisocial relatives were found more often for boys whose bread-
winner had a blue-collar job than for those whose breadwinner had
a white-collar job. Boys from blue-collar families averaged 1.48
antisocial relatives out of four; boys from white-collar families av-
1
See Lee N. Robins, Harry Gyman, and Patricia O'Neal, "The Interaction of
Social Class and Deviant Behavior,"Amer. Soc. Review, 27:480-92 (Aug., 1962).

eraged only .92. And having two antecedent generations of anti-

social relatives was more than twice as common for boys from
blue-collarthan from white-collarfamilies (45 per cent compared
to 20 per cent). But within both blue- and white-collar families
(Table 9), the four factors of the antisocial grandfather,the num-
ber of relatives,the numberof generationsantisocial,and the pres-
ence of both male and female antisocial relatives appeared to be
related to graduationand arrest in about the same way in which
they had been for the total population.
Interestinglyenough,the boys from white-collarfamiliesseemed
to have been more stronglyinfluencedby their relatives'antisocial
TABLE 9. THE RELATIONSHIP OF ANTISOCIAL RELATIVES TO TIIE

GRADUATION AND THE ARRESTS OF BOYS IN BLUE-COLLAR
AND WHITE-COLLAR FAMILIES
BLUE-COLLAR FAMILIES WHITE-COLLAR FAMILIES
ANTISOCIAL Graduated Arrested Graduated Arrested

RELATIVES
Per- N Per- N Per- N Per- N
centage Cases centage Cases centage Cases centage Cases
TOTAL 50 28 9 33 57 23 32 25
GRANDFATHER
antisocial 31 13 11 18 11 9 67 9
not antisocial 67 15 7 15 86 14 12 16
NUMBER OF
RELATIVES
three or four 12 6 20 10 0 2 50 2
two 20 5 20 5 0 4 75 4
one 67 6 0 7 50 8 37 8
none 73 11 0 11 100 9 9 11
NUMBER OF GEN-
ERATIONS
two 22 9 20 15 0 5 60 5
one 60 8 0 9 4 9 44 9
SEX OF
RELATIVES
male and
female 11 9 23 13 0 5 60 5
male only 62 8 0 9 43 7 57 7
female only ... ... ... ... 50 2 0 2
behavior than had boys from blue-collar families. Although the

number of cases becomes very small when boys are divided by
class, it is clear that the arrest rate was substantiallyhigher and
the graduationrate somewhat lower for boys in antisocial white-
collarhomes than in antisocialblue-collarhomes.Without antisocial
relatives, all the boys from white-collar homes completed high
school, and only one was arrested.Failing to complete high school

was not so totally dependent on having antisocialrelativesfor boys

from blue-collar families, but even among them, three-quarters
graduatedwhen no parent or grandparentwas antisocial,and none
of them was arrested.
Discussion
When the graduationand juvenile arrests of sons of subjects of a
thirty-yearfollow-up study were investigated, only 40 per cent of
the sons of ex-child-guidanceclinic patients were found to have
graduatedfrom high school as compared with 73 per cent of the
sons of control subjects. Twenty-fourper cent of the sons of ex-
child-guidance clinic patients were found to have been arrested
as juveniles comparedwith only 6 per cent of sons of control sub-
jects. These findings underscorethe fact that childhood behavior
problems seem to perpetuate themselves from one generation to
the next. But of interest in addition to the fact of the continuity of
antisocial behavior between generationsis the mechanism of that
continuity. Simple re-enactmentof parentalproblemsdid not seem
to explainthe inheritanceof childhoodbehaviorproblems.Although
the ex-child-guidanceclinic patients had, indeed, themselves less
often graduated from high school and more often been arrested
than had the control parents,there was no simple relationbetween
their childhood problems and those of their sons. Rather, the im-
portantfactor seemed to be the existence of adult antisocialbehav-
ior in the child's constellationof relatives. Sons of child guidance
clinic patients much more often than sons of control subjects had
antisocialrelatives. The single relative who appearedto have most
influence on the boy's chances of graduation and arrest was the
grandfather.There is little in existing theory to explain why he
should be so important,nor could his unique importancebe dem-
onstrated in the few control children with antisocial relatives. In
any case, the addition of other antisocialrelativesincreasedthe risk
of failure to graduate,as did the presence of antisocialrelatives in
both ascendant generationsand the presence of both male and fe-
male antisocialrelatives.
The constellation of antisocial relatives appeared to predict
failure to graduatefrom high school and arrestsfor boys from both
white-collar and blue-collarhomes. Interestingly enough, gradua-
tion and arrestrecordswere even poorerfor white-collarboys with
antisocial relatives than for blue-collar boys with antisocial relatives.
While the small number of cases and the special sample studied

caution against drawing sweeping interpretationsfrom these find-

ings, the findings do suggest that an importantexplanationfor the
repeated observationthat poor school success and juvenile arrests
are endemic in the lower classes may be that lower-classchildren
are much more often membersof antisocialfamily groups, particu-
larly of antisocialfamiliesthat extend at least two generationsante-
cedent to the child. These findings also suggest that the extended
family may have an importantfunction in reinforcingor attenuat-
ing the impact of an antisocialparent.


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The Role of the Antisocial Family in School Completion and Delinquency: A Three-Generation

This content downloaded from 195.78.109.193 on Wed, 11 Jun 2014 00:19:36 AM

LEE N. ROBINSand RUTHGILMANLEWIS, Washington

THE OBSERVATION that deviant children have deviant parents has

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which start with parents as index cases produce a different kind of

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more impact than a family in which fewer members are antisocial?

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TABLE 1. GRADUATION AND ARRESTS OF SONS OF CHILD-GUIDANCE

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Those parents who as children had been referred to the child

TABLE 2. INDEX PARENTS' JUVENILE ARRESTS AND

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tween parents'juvenile arrestsand their sons'.And within the con-

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a parent or grandparentwas antisocial, only 30 per cent of the

Percentage N Cases Percentage N Cases

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would need to compare graduation and arrest rates of boys whose

uation and number of relatives antisocial was regular, the addition

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A third factor in graduation appeared to be the presence of

TABLE 5. NUMBER OF ASCENDANT GENERATIONS ANTISOCIAL AND

ANTISOCIALRELATIVES Graduated Arrested

Percentage N Cases Percentage N Cases

rental generations, only 11 per cent graduated; in only one ascend-

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greater impact on graduation of antisocial behavior in the father

Percentage N Cases Percentage N Cases

tives antisocial. When only female relatives were antisocial (a rare

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in both antecedent generations. However, even matched on number

TABLE 7. RELATION OF NUMBER OF PREDICTORS TO GRADUATION

Any antisocial relatives 80 37 29 42

three factors present, 11 per cent graduated; with one of these

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Grandfather Grandmother Father Mother

Boys with an antisocial grandfather averaged fewer antisocial rela-

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eraged only .92. And having two antecedent generations of anti-

TABLE 9. THE RELATIONSHIP OF ANTISOCIAL RELATIVES TO TIIE

ANTISOCIAL Graduated Arrested Graduated Arrested

behavior than had boys from blue-collar families. Although the

This content downloaded from 195.78.109.193 on Wed, 11 Jun 2014 00:19:36 AM

was not so totally dependent on having antisocialrelativesfor boys

This content downloaded from 195.78.109.193 on Wed, 11 Jun 2014 00:19:36 AM

caution against drawing sweeping interpretationsfrom these find-

This content downloaded from 195.78.109.193 on Wed, 11 Jun 2014 00:19:36 AM

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