NCJ Number
79965
Journal
Indian Journal of Social Work Volume: 42 Issue: 1 Dated: (April 1981) Pages: 9-19
Date Published
1981
Length
11 pages
Annotation
Based on findings from studies that examined the school experiences of known delinquents, this Indian paper offers suggestions for educational strategies that may help prevent delinquency.
Abstract
Most juvenile delinquents have been found to have poor school records in the areas of academic performance, behavioral adjustment, and truancy. Further, most delinquents come from families with low socioeconomic status, from which the parents themselves dropped out of school. The parents are thus ill-equipped to be role models and motivators for their children in achieving adjustment and successful performance in school. The children from such families do not begin school with the language skills possessed by students from families of higher socioeconomic levels. Studies also tend to show that the reactive negative judgments of classmates and teachers toward those who do not adjust or perform well in school alienate such students from the normative school environment, so that the school experience becomes painful and humiliating. Hostility toward school personnel, truancy, and dropping out are the consequences. Efforts that could do much to facilitate the school adjustment of students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds include counseling them on the importance of education and having teachers give them special attention and supportive encouragement that will help make the school experience more positive. Eighteen references are listed.