The purpose of the study was to explore the causal relationships between delinquency and self-esteem among adolescents. The subjects of this study were 497 adolescents attending middle schools in Pusan. The data was collected by longitudinal research design of 9 month interval In first, second wave, the participants completed the delinquency scale and the multidimensional self-esteem inventory that includes home self, peer-related self, teacher-related self, academic-general serif, physical appearance self, physical competence self, and personality self, respectively The major findings of this study were as follows: these causal relationships differed among subdimensions of self-esteem, 1)the causal relationship between delinquency and home self was bidirectional, 2)the causal relationship between delinquency and peer-related self, teacher-related self, academic-general self, and personality self was unidirectional, 3)the causal relationship between delinquency and physical appearance self, physical competence self was not statistically significant.