ABSTRACT
The paucity of prior results alone might encourage a rethinking of the class-delinquency issue, but there are also theoretical and methodological reasons to pursue alternative formulations. To begin, the substitution of socioeconomic status for class is inappropriate. Such measures are a Weberian offshoot of the Marxian conceptualization of class (Bendix 1974). An attractive feature of these measures is that they provide precise, continuous scores that can be used to rank individuals in terms of status. Delinquency theories, however, rarely focus on such fine grada-
tions of status. Hirschi makes this point with regard to the lower end of the class structure, noting that "the class model implicit in most theories of delinquency is a peculiarly top-heavy, two-class model made up of the overwhelming majority of respectable people on the one hand and the lumpenproletariat on the other" (1969, p. 71). Conflict and Marxian theories extend attention to the top of the class structure. Still, there is no theoretically informed basis for dividing gradational status measures into discrete class groupings. Alternatively, neo-Marxian scholars have developed survey measures that operationalize the classes in relational, that is, structural, rather than gradational terms (e.g., Wright 1980, p. 198). Within this framework, classes are conceived as not merely "above" or "below" one another. Instead, they are defined in terms of their social relation to one another, with each class located in a discrete structural position within the social organization of the relations of production.
