The participants were 873 students attending public school during the 1987-88 academic year. The researchers oversampled males to make up 75 percent of the sample, because males are more likely than females to be seriously and chronically delinquent. Students from the areas of the city with the highest arrest rates were also proportionately overrepresented. Sixty-six percent of the youths were black, 18 percent white, and 15 percent Hispanic. Information was gathered by means of interviews. Most youths were interviewed at school, and their parents were interviewed at home. Family relationships were measured through two scales that assessed attachment and control, and a 29-item scale measured juvenile delinquency. Results revealed that family variables as a group were more important in some ethnic and racial contexts than in others, but that the same family processes generally appeared to be operating in similar ways. In all groups, the child's perception of attachment was the foremost predictor of juvenile delinquency. Footnotes, attached tables and study instruments, and 65 references.