Social Class, School Experience, and Delinquency

Albert Cohen's delinquency theory is vulnerable to demonstrations of similar qualities, as well as similar quantities, of delinquency between middle and working‐class groups. In analyses of questionnaire data from a high school male population, no significant differences in incidence of delinquency emerge between classes. No significant differences obtain between classes of delinquents on items tapping the peer or subcultural dimensions Cohen considers particularly characteristic of working‐class delinquency. Finally, delinquency is shown to be related to academic performance regardless of class .