The Role of the School in Juvenile Delinquency Prevention (With Especial Reference to Pupil Personnel Services)

Abstract

A child is not born a delinquent. He may have become predelinquent by the time that he does enter school, since home and neighborhood influences are strong conditioning factors. In several of the large city school systems readiness tests, administered at the beginning of the first grade, indicate that many children for various reasons are unprepared to begin formal learning in reading and number work. After a year in school, during which they usually have special readiness curriculum experiences, a high proportion still are retained.' Frustration then, that leads to maladjustment in society, can start at this early level of a school career.