Bidang Kajian : Kanak-kanak
Pelajar/Pengkaji Oleh: Teoh Xi Yao
Alamat Emel: teohxiyao@1utar.my
Tarikh: 27/12/2023
Abstrak Kajian
Juvenile problem behaviour is not a new issue in Malaysia. The statistics shown by the Department of Statistics Malaysia indicates that the overall number of juvenile offence cases has increased from 2014 to 2018. There has been a lot of evidence on the significant role of parental influence on adolescents’ problem behaviour. Parental behaviour can be positive or negative, and it has specific consequences on a child’s behaviour. Several studies confirmed that peers play a vital role to influence adolescents’ delinquency (Cho et al., 2017; Meldrum et al., 2013; Smith et al., 2016). Adolescents spend a lot of time with their peers outside the home and thus peers have significant influence on their behaviour. A review study conducted by Phaik- Gaik et al., (2010) revealed that peer factor significantly influenced antisocial behaviour of adolescents. The General Theory of Crime claims that self-control is the sole cause of delinquency and criminal behaviour (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990). People who lack of self- control have difficulty focusing on long-term benefits. Low self-control may interfere with one’s life such as marriage quality, career selection, peer and family relationship. Findings showed that children and adolescents who are associated with positive peers display better ability for self-control while associations with deviant peers may cause lower self-regulatory skills. Besides of self-control factor, Lee et al (2017) also stated the importance of using coping strategies for high school adolescents to deal with their problems. Reid and Listwan (2018) interviewed 306 males who were incarcerated in California of the United States also found the links between coping strategies and delinquency behaviours. Gang members and those more active in violent misconduct used more aggressive technique to manage their problems whereas youth who were younger, sex offenders, or newer to the facility used more passive avoidance techniques. Therefore, this study aims to address the aforementioned exclusions by developing and testing model to examine how social control factors (parenting, peer influence), self-control factor and coping strategies associate with juvenile behaviour. A quantitative research method (survey) will be employed to examine the relationships among social control factors, self-control factor, coping strategies and juvenile behaviour of adolescents from Sekolah Tunas Bakti. Sekolah Tunas Bakti is an institute that is sanctioned under Malaysian government aiming to provide education and training to children below 18-year old who were involved in crimes. A total of 224 juveniles from Sekolah Tunas Bakti, Malaysia, will be recruited to participate in the present research. The targeted participants are between 12 to 17 years old. The key findings indicate that self-control and coping strategies (dysfunctional coping) serve as serial mediators between parental behaviours (father’s coercion, mother's coercion and mother’s rejection) and problematic behaviours in adolescents. Also, the findings found that self-control and coping strategy (dysfunctional coping) were serial mediators between peer influence and problematic behaviours in juveniles. The findings of this study may provide a more comprehensive picture of the relationship among social control factor, self-control factor, coping strategies and juvenile behaviour. In terms of practical contribution, the findings of this study may contribute to Malaysian government, researchers, parents, schools and other related units in policy improvement and designing suitable prevention or intervention programmes to prevent juvenile behaviours.