ABSTRACT
In 1961 the Education Welfare Officers' National Association asked the writer to undertake with them a research into truancy. A pilot study was initiated in Sheffield and Salford, but although its results were encouraging no further progress could be made owing to lack of finance. Some two years later, however, the writer was invited by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization to conduct a validation of his Delinquency Prediction Instrument. This project required a sample of boys and girls selected from all over Britain, among whom would be a goodly proportion of the delinquency prone. A sample of truants with controls of the same age would meet this requirement admirably. It was consequently agreed that the two research projects should be amalgamated. The marriage was a particularly happy one, since the Education Welfare Officers were in contact with both the schools and the homes, and it is part of their duties to know the whereabouts of children and to send notification when a child moves from one local administrative area to another. In addition, their Association agreed to undertake the whole of the detailed administration of the research, and this they did with admirable efficiency.
