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Delinquency, Family Background and Educational Attainment

NCJ Number
93592
Journal
British Journal of Criminology Volume: 24 Issue: 1 Dated: (January 1984) Pages: 2-26
Author(s)
J Ouston
Date Published
1984
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This paper presents the results of a study on the possible relationships between school factors and pupil attainments and behavior. Focus is on the differences between delinquents and nondelinquents in their attainments and family background.
Abstract
The sample consisted of 17-year-olds in 12 London schools. Delinquency data came from the Metropolitan Police Juvenile Bureau. Clear relationships existed between delinquency and the background factors of parental occupation, ethnic background, teachers' reports on behavior at school, recorded attendance, and scores on reading and nonverbal intelligence tests. Girls had much lower delinquency rates than boys, but the pattern of relationships between delinquency and background factors was similar. A simplified model suggested that the teachers' questionnaire data most closely fitted the statistical distribution of delinquents. The addition of the parental occupation parameter was slightly more powerful than the intelligence test score; ethnic group made no significant contribution once the other parameters were considered. The final part of the analysis focused on attainment and attendance at the end of compulsory schooling. By the fifth year, the delinquents were, on the average, much worse attenders than the nondelinquents and were more likely to leave school as soon as they could. They also passed far fewer graded examinations; for boys, a slight difference between delinquents and nondelinquents remained even after taking into account the earlier differences in test scores and in school attendance. Three figures, 3 notes, 20 tables, and 26 references are included.

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