A Survey of School Attitudes and Adjustment of Delinquent Boys

Abstract

The observations for this study have extended over three years, and the boys are restricted to those from a Welfare Home who attended the ------ school in Standards 3, 4, 5 and 6. Those in lower classes are not included. Though reference will be made to the 24 boys who have come under the writer's notice from this particular Home, generally those who have come into his classroom will receive special attention and form the case studies. At the same time they form a typical sample of the "delinquent boy". These case studies have been built up from:- (a) The records at the Welfare Office. (b) Conversations with Welfare Officers who have visited the homes. (c) The observations of the Home authorities. (d) The observations of other teachers. (e) The Home boys talking about each other. (f) The writer's own tests and observations in classroom, playground and at the Welfare Home. Several members of the Staff take a keen interest in the personal problems of the children, so that Home boys as they are conspicuous as newcomers with or without problems, do not escape this interest. The Staff's attitude is not one of reluctant handling which it could be, but a genuine desire to make the delinquent boy fit into the class and school situation. Besides all the non-delinquent boys in classes 3, 4, 5 and 6 being used as a control group, special note has been taken of New Zealand-born entries to the school during this time, for a second control group. Numerous Chinese, Indian and continental children have been excluded from this. The references to and findings concerning delinquents in the following work apply equally well to many non-delinquent children with conflicts, difficulties, or delinquent tendencies, who never come before a Court. Practising teachers know of many difficult “non-delinquents”, and some who seem to have committed more in the nature of crimes, than the delinquents themselves. That is, it is difficult to find a satisfactory definition of delinquency, except that the person concerned is immature. All the names of boys in the work have been changed.