The nurturing of Criminologists: An exercise in futility

The Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich Harris was a revolutionary book that called into question the family socialization literature and the conventional ways in which parenting is typically studied by social scientists. In the 25 years since it was first published, the key arguments set forth in The Nurture Assumption still remain on the margins of most fields of study and not fully integrated into individual research agendas. In this paper, I focus on how Judith Rich Harris has impacted my scholarly thinking and my academic career as a criminologist. In doing so, I discuss the ways in which Judith Rich Harris’ views can guide criminological thinking and the reasons why the field of criminology has been and continues to be resistant to her and The Nurture Assumption.