One of 52 theoretical papers on school crime and its relation to poverty, this chapter is essentially a study of the relations between delinquency and the school system in Britain and an analysis of the extent to which British experience is relevant to the study of delinquency in the United States and in Canada. There is little serious crime in British schools, although damage to school buildings (especially arson) out of school hours is a problem. The principal significance of the British state school system in this regard is that it generates stresses and frustrations that create the conditions in which a delinquent subculture can develop and persist. This paper reviews what is known of the relations among delinquency, behavior in school, truancy, and scholastic performance, and considers how the perceptions and the behavior of teachers may mitigate or exacerbate tendencies towards the development of an antischool subculture. Connections between school and postschool concerns, the significance of the lower-class "leisure culture," and the emergence of a distinctively adolescent culture are considered. Finally, the relevance of British studies to attempts to explain the relations between school subcultures and delinquency in the United States and in Canada is discussed. (Author/MLF)