Abstract
Juvenile delinquency is a multidimensional and complex phenomenon that requires an ecological and structural analysis of the human development process. Drawing on Urie Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory of human development, this study seeks to examine how dysfunctional social structures—particularly at the exosystem and macrosystem levels—constitute or exacerbate deviant developmental trajectories in adolescents.
This article uses an analytical approach to examine the indirect but profound influence of two specific environmental layers, the exosystem (including parental employment status, access to social services, and mass media) and the macrosystem (including cultural values, social norms, and political macrostructures). The arguments presented are supported by theoretical sources and documented socio-structural indicators.
According to the research findings, chronic poverty, class inequality, inefficiency of the education system, institutional discrimination, weakness of social support networks, and generational conflicts in values, as signs of a disrupted social structure, disrupt the emotional, educational, and identity-finding processes of adolescents, especially in vulnerable contexts; also, preventive policies in the field of juvenile delinquency cannot have sustainable effectiveness without considering the roots hidden in macro and semi-macro social structures. Timely and multi-layered interventions are necessary to deal with the cumulative effects of structural disorders.