ABSTRACT
This chapter was commissioned by Michael Rutter in preparation for a three-day seminar on psycho-social disturbances in young people. The seminar was sponsored by the Johann Jacobs foundation at its Communication Centre at Marbach Castle on Lake Constance. The main theme of the seminar was how young people were coping with the extensive social, demographic, economic, technological and cultural changes taking place around them. It also reviewed potential preventative strategies—of which the school was deemed one of the most powerful. Writing the paper for this seminar caused me to undertake a review of the literature on school effectiveness as it had developed since the publication of Fifteen Thousand Hours.
