Academic Achievement: Control for Income

In many analyses, authors have pointed out the importance of controlling for income or SES. For example, Moffitt, Gabrielli, and Mednick (1981) were among the early authors to employ such a control in studies of IQ and delinquency. In studies identified here, all those who controlled for SES reported that the association between grades and violence still held (Bellair et al., 2003; Brownlie et al., 2004; McNulty & Bellair, 2003; Rebellon & van Gundy, 2005; Wright & Fitzpatrick, 2006).

Academic Achievement: Control for Parent Education

Another important control is parent education. Parent education has been inversely associated with violent behavior in children in many studies and is likely to be strongly correlated with the child’s grades in school. In the present set of studies, there is almost no controversy; the association between academic achievement and violent behavior remains statistically significant when parent education is controlled in the model (Bellair & McNulty, 2005; Bernburg & Thorlindsson, 1999; Ellickson & McGuigan, 2000; McNulty & Bellair, 2003). Only Piquero (2000) reports a coefficient that is not statistically significant, and his model is very conservative.