Attachment to the School

Academic competence is linked to delinquency by way of success in and attachment to the school. Academic competence is assumed to operate through attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief to produce delinquent acts. This chapter shows that students with little academic competence and students who perform poorly are more likely to commit delinquent acts, and it argues that the link between ability and performance on the one hand and delinquency on the other is the bond to the school. Academic competence is obvious importance in academic performance and commitment to the school and to the educational system that its assumed lack of relation to delinquency must be considered one of the wonders of modern social science. The chapter presents a simple causal chain and examined data relevant to it. The causal chain runs from academic incompetence to poor school performance to disliking of school to rejection of the school's authority to the commission of delinquent acts.