Using a sample of 615 middle school and high school students from both rural and urban areas of the People's Republic of China, this study tests the central hypotheses concerning the mediating model in Agnew's general strain theory. The analyses focus on the intervening mechanisms of negative emotions such as anger, resentment, anxiety, and depression that connect exposure to interpersonal strain with delinquent outcomes, including both serious delinquency and minor offenses. The results show that anger mediates the effect of interpersonal strain on violence, resentment mediates the effect of interpersonal strain on nonviolent delinquency, and anxiety and depression have a mediating effect on the relationships between interpersonal strain and minor offenses. The findings are generally consistent with the results of earlier studies in the United States.

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This study links macro social change to emotional health through continuity and change in farming. Families were divided into four groups, depending on whether they were full‐time farmers, part‐time farmers, displaced farm families who had left farming during the 1980s, or nonfarm families. Using four waves of panel data, we estimated initial levels and subsequent changes in per capita family income, stressful life events, and depressive symptoms of wives and husbands. Between 1989 and 1992, full‐time farm families' incomes decreased dramatically, while displaced farm families started 1989 with the lowest average per capita family income but saw the largest average increases in subsequent years. Farm status and changes in income predicted changes in stressful life events; changes in stressful life events, in turn, predicted changes in wives' and husbands' reports of depressive symptoms.

In Agnew's general strain theory, repeated strains can generate crime and delinquency by reducing social control and fostering social learning of crime. Using a sample of 615 middle-and high-school students in China, this study examines how social control and social learning variables mediate the effect of repeated strains in school and at home on delinquency. The findings from an integrated model support Agnew's mediating argument in a non-Western society. Repeated negative treatment by teachers promotes delinquent behavior both through weakened conventional bonds and beliefs and through heightened association with delinquent peers. Repeated negative treatment by parents affects delinquency only through weakened conventional bonds. The prominent role of school experiences in the lives of Chinese adolescents is discussed. ArticleBao et al. 403Keywords repeated strain, control, learning, delinquency, Chinese adolescents delinquency in China, comparative criminology, criminological theories, and social change and adolescent development.