Status origins, youth rebellion, and delinquency: A reexamination of the class issue

This report examines the relationship between status origins and delinquency using an expanded range of status origin indicators together with both self-report and official measures of delinquency. Data were drawn from an ongoing investigation of adolescents in the Pacific Northwest. It was found that with few exceptions all four measures of status origins offer extremely low predictive utility vis-à-visdelinquent involvement. It is suggested that future efforts be directed at unraveling other more fruitful indicators of delinquency and, most especially, at examining the structure, process, and implications of differential status allocation within the educational arena.