Dropping Out and Delinquency Among Puerto Rican Youths - A Longitudinal Study - Final Report, January 1984

• NCJ Number: 92937
• Author(s): M J Gutierrez; B Montalvo
• Date Published: 1984
• Length: 266 pages
• Grant Number(s): 79-JN-AX-0024
• Sponsoring Agency: US Securities and Exchange Cmssn
• Corporate Author: Aspira of America, Inc
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study reports the findings of a longitudinal survey of 505 Puerto Rican teenagers and their parents in Philadelphia over a 3-year period, focusing on the association between dropping out of school and delinquency.

Abstract

The 10th grade was chosen for the cohort because it represents the peak year for dropping out in the Philadelphia school district. The 505 cases were drawn from 416 public schools and 89 parochial schools. The students and one of their parents were interviewed during the 1979-80 school year and followed up on each of the 2 subsequent years. The sample retention rate from year 1 to year 3 was 83.8 percent. Dropping out from high school in the 10th grade was definitely linked to public school attendance, since parochial schools had very few dropouts. However, there were also significant socioeconomic differences between public and parochial students. Only 33 of the 204 males and 36 of the 176 females in public schools were dropouts. Most dropouts did not become delinquent, and there was no evidence that dropouts increased delinquent activities after leaving school. The study found a significant association between dropping out and trouble with the law for boys, but not for girls. The 10th grade dropouts were more vulnerable to delinquency than 11th and 12th grade dropouts. More than one-third of the youths entering 10th grade had left school by their senior year. Dropping out was related to lower proficiency in English and previous attendance in bilingual education programs, drug and alcohol use, dropout friends, a history of school-based difficulties, low maternal cross-cultural competence, families lacking organization and rituals, and somewhat lower socioeconomic status. Delinquency appeared as an imbalance of family, peer, and institutional forces in which parental influence erodes while that of peers increases, and the school is not only unable to compensate for the family's insufficiency but augments related problems. Tables, approximately 45 references, the survey questionnaire, and materials on the methodology are supplied.