This study began with a survey of twenty-eight school districts of Erie County, New York, and its aims were to determine and compare attrition in foreign languages in those districts. The data, obtained through discussion with teachers, interviews with students, questionnaires, and Flander's Interaction Analysis, assisted in the formulation of the following conclusions: (1) School districts situated in agricultural and industrial communities offered foreign language study beginning at grade nine, while schools situated in residential communities tended to begin the study of foreign languages in the seventh grade. (2) The attrition of foreign language enrollments in high socioeconomic school districts was substantially less than in school districts situated in lower socioeconomic areas. (3) The critical points in dropping foreign language study occurred at the end of the second and third level. (4) Fifty percent of the students who dropped a foreign language discontinued their study because they had satisfied requirements for college entrance while the other fifty percent discontinued because (a) the second and third levels were "hard"; (b) they preferred another subject; (c) they were not interested in continuing; (d) they were advised to do so by a guidance counselor; and (e) they did not like the teacher. (5) Teachers were aware that the amount of content required was not satisfactorily adjusted to individual differences. (Author/KM)