NCJ Number
138138
Journal
Urban Education Volume: 26 Issue: 4 Dated: (January 1992) Pages: 359-370
Date Published
1992
Length
12 pages
Annotation
A measure of self-reported delinquency was administered to 1,734 randomly selected junior and senior high school students in urban Southern California during the fall of 1986 to investigate the relationship between the family social status of students and crime or delinquency committed by students within the school context.
Abstract
In contrast to most previous studies which depict either a negative or null relationship between social class and delinquency, this study finds a positive relationship for school crime. Study data show the same positive relationship in all categories of delinquency. For delinquency outside school but during the school year, the ratio of male-female delinquency was similar to that generally reported in the literature. Female students committed 27 percent of delinquent acts. For the relationship between social class and delinquency outside school, results for males and females differed. Females displayed no statistically significant relationship at the .05 level. Males continued to show a positive relationship but at a lower magnitude than they did for social class and school crime. The volume of delinquency outside school for males was 43 percent of their school delinquency. Females had even less delinquency outside school relative to school delinquency, i.e., 28 percent of their school delinquency. Both males and females displayed a negative association between summer delinquency and social class. The relationship between social class and male delinquency lost its statistical significance when school delinquency, nonschool delinquency, and summer delinquency were combined into a total delinquency category, but a very modest negative relationship remained between social class and total female delinquency. 3 tables and 13 references