DOES DROPPING OUT OF SCHOOL ENHANCE DELINQUENT INVOLVEMENT - RESULTS FROM A LARGE-SCALE NATIONAL PROBABILITY SAMPLE

This study seeks to improve on Previous research on the relationship b etween dropping out of school and later involvement in delinquency. Us ing data from the first two waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, the analysis addresses two problems with prior studies in th is area: (1) By controlling for many variables that may account for ob served dropout-delinquency associations, it is possible to explore the possibility that the relationship may be spurious. (2) By examining t he effects of different reasons for dropping out, the study avoids the assumption that dropouts are a homogeneous group. Results indicate th at the effect of dropping out of school on later offending is more com plicated than previous research leads one to believe. In addition, dro pping out does not always enhance the likelihood of a person's later d elinquent involvement.