When approached by Plenum to put together a volume of social science research on the topic of "youth and justice," I found the interdisciplinary challenge of such a project intriguing. Having spent 2 years as Director of the Law and Social Science Program at the National Science Foundation, I was well aware of the rich diversity of research that could fit within that topic. I also knew that excellent research on youth and justice was coming from different communities of researchers who often were isolated from each other in their respective disciplines as psychologists, sociologists,...

Legal Socialization - A Study of Norms and Rules examines the varying responses, negative and positive, to rule enforcement, as well as the genesis of these responses and the conditions under which they occur. The book presents the results of a longitudinal, multi-methodological study of the dynamic interaction between norms of behavior and rule enforcement in a natural setting, specifically, a university residential community. This approach allowed for the testing of competing hypotheses drawn from social learning and cognitive developmental theory to determine which was more...

When approached by Plenum to put together a volume of social science research on the topic of "youth and justice," I found the interdisciplinary challenge of such a project intriguing. Having spent 2 years as Director of the Law and Social Science Program at the National Science Foundation, I was well aware of the rich diversity of research that could fit within that topic. I also knew that excellent research on youth and justice was coming from different communities of researchers who often were isolated from each other in their respective disciplines as psychologists, sociologists,...