First Name:
Kathleen
Last Name:
Williams
Major Department:
Psychology
Thesis Director:
Twila Wingrove
Date of Thesis:
May 2013
Over a million adolescents run away from home each year. This paper examines 13 factors to see how they predict and impact the probability that an adolescent will run away from home. This paper also discusses the historical perceptions of adolescent runaways and key theoretical explanations behind runaway behavior. The definition used throughout this paper for a runaway is: “someone under the age of 18 who stays away from home at least overnight without parental permission” (Tyler & Bersani, 2008, p. 231). Gender, age, low socioeconomic status (SES), family disruption, poor parenting, physical and sexual abuse, having same-sex romantic attractions, having deviant peers, deviant behavior, and living in an urban neighborhood with high crime rates are all associated with an increased likelihood of running away. Some of the factors, such as race/ethnicity, are still highly debated about the effect they may have on adolescents’ decisions to run away. Other factors, such as the region of the country that the youth lives in, still need future research to better understand why they may increase runaway behavior.
Keywords: runaway adolescents, runaway behavior, predictive factors