Self-control and resistance to school

This paper tests the relationship between self-control, social control and resistance to school. The data source is a survey of senior and junior high-school students in Alberta, Canada. Results offer strong support for the General Theory of Crime (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990) in that lack of self-control is the strongest predictor of all types of resistance. The results support the hypothesis that if the link between social class (or gender and ethnicity) and resistance is low (at least in Canada), it may be because self-control mechanisms that produce or repudiate resistance are not strongly linked to social class (or gender and ethnicity). Nevertheless, gender, age, class and ethnicity maintain a significant relationship with some or all aspects of resistance to school even after controlling for self-control. Implications of the findings for the General Theory of Crime are discussed.