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ticipation. For too long communities have been trying to solve the delinquency problem by doing case studies on youth, to youth, or for youth. In the preventive effort adults have been planning and providing school, recreation, and welfare programs for children and youth. Youth services have come to mean adults serving youth. The time has come to involve youth in their own cure. No one can solve the youth problem for youth. Only youth can do this for themselves. In a sense youth must bootstrap themselves to a better adjustment. This means that the adults in the community will need to show more trust and belief in youth. They will need to extend more responsibilities to youth for their own actions. This means that youth must be allowed to make mistakes under supervision and to work out their errors in their own way.

A major portion of the delinquency tragedy has its beginning in the strong feeling of adolescent inferiority which adults preserve in the image they maintain of youth. Yet young people are more ready for adult responsibilities than adults are ready to allow. Youth must be consulted and involved in any community program that aims to prevent and control delinquency. Here is the missing ingredient in the usual adult approaches to what is a serious youth problem which youth alone can solve.

SUMMARY

The modern clubwoman can play a vital role in community effort to prevent and control the steep and steady increase in juvenile delinquency. But this role cannot be played at random or without preparation and planning. It will call for a daringness and a willingness to face unpleasant facts; it will demand an objective and impersonal viewpoint; it will demand that the clubwoman become knowledgeable as to the meaning and causes of delinquent behavior. As this happens, and as the clubwoman begins to place the accent on preventive effort and as she begins to seek a high degree of coordination of community effort and as she begins to involve youth in the solution of what is their own problem-only then can we anticipate a lessening of the delinquency problem. Much of current delinquency can be prevented and controlled. But this will not come about without the sustained effort of organized and informed motherhood as found in the women's clubs across the Nation and around the world.

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SCHOOLING is what happens to children and youth under the guidance of classroom teachers. If the teachers are well prepared, the teaching is likely to be effective in helping pupils attain the goals of the school program. But the most effective teacher is one who keeps his planning and instruction in tune with the useful and constructive findings of educational research.

Research may be useful to the classroom teacher in at least three ways: (1) by helping him develop an alert, sensitive attitude to the advancing edge of human knowledge, (2) by supplying him with facts whereby he can improve his own work, and (3) by stimulating him to go on beyond existing research findings to discover additional facts for himself.

The problem of the typical classroom teacher is to keep pace with the continually advancing field of educational research. He must know where and how to find research and then he must be able to read with understanding what he finds. The problem is further complicated by the varying degrees of reliability among research studies. These complications are so serious that many classroom teachers do not have the benefits of research and many research studies have little effect on everyday practice.

The bridging of this gap seems to be one of the most important problems in today's education. For this reason the NEA Department of Classroom Teachers and the American Educational Research Association have joined together to produce a series of pamphlets on "what research says to the teacher." The cost of printing these publications has been met by the Department of Classroom Teachers of the National Education Association. The authors are well-known research leaders from among the membership of the AERA. The layout and editing of the series have been done by the staffs of the AERA and the NEA Research Division. The Department of Classroom Teachers and the AERA are indebted to the individual authors of this series. All of them have made personal sacrifices to prepare their manuscripts; none has received an honorarium. Their contributions are unselfish gifts to the progress of education.

Copyright, August 1958

National Education Association
First Edition, August 1958

The Library of Congress catalogue entry for this publication appears on the inside back cover.

EXPLANATION

The author has attempted to draw from research material on juvenile delinquency the items which promise to be of most help to classroom teachers. It is not a complete summary of research. In some instances opinion has been given which is believed to represent the views of most experts. The interpretation and recommendations are those which the author, William C. Kvaraceus of Boston University, believes to be soundly supported by research. His original manuscript was reviewed by Hazel F. Gabbard, Specialist, Extended School Services and Parent Education, U. S. Office of Education; and Jack A. Holmes, School of Education, University of California, Berkeley. Changes were made by the author on the basis of the suggestions of the reviewers and of the staffs of the AERA and the NEA Research Division.

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