Table15
The start of delinquent behavior x grade and gender
%
  total Boys Girls 7th graders 8th graders 9th graders
Eating candy and chewing gum at school 60.9 61.0 60.8 66.1 59.5 57.4
Shortening school jacket 45.6 48.9 42.1 44.5 45.5 46.8
Shortening skirt length 39.5 42.7 36.3 42.9 40.4 35.6
Scribble on desks and chairs 41.9 44.4 39.1 46.5 42.1 37.3
Not participating in classroom clean-up duty 45.8 46.7 45.0 53.3 44.9 39.8
Tardiness 33.0 32.8 33.4 37.1 32.6 29.8
Walking on the back of shoes 29.5 27.7 31.3 30.6 29.3 28.4
Not wearing school or grade badges 29.1 28.3 30.1 36.7 27.6 23.8
Bringing comic books to school 30.1 33.8 26.1 39.7 28.3 23.1
Leaving textbooks at school 16.8 18.1 15.3 19.6 18.4 12.5
Bringing hairbrushes to school 12.7 15.7 9.5 16.1 13.9 8.4
Regularly forgetting to bring things to school 13.8 15.6 11.9 20.5 14.2 7.5
Having long phone conversation with friends 8.0 7.2 8.8 9.2 8.9 6.0
* % who think of the behaviors as "very delinquent" and "rather delinquent"