w frequently believe that they are the victims of injustice. They often identify themselves as having been rejected because they are members of racial, ethnic or religious minorities. Because of their sense of isolation and alienation, they rarely participate in extracurricular activities (Cervantes, 1965). An early interventions, such as an intensive summer day camp experience, may be useful in helping to redefine the social boundaries that keep underprivileged minority children isolated.
The appropriate summer camp experience can form a part of a larger set of programs to overcome the effects of intergenerational poverty. As class plays a huge role in determining the extent of children's involvement in education, as well as the extent of their involvement in drugs and crime, educational and cultural programs that directly compensate for the limiting effects of class may be especially helpful in reducing the impact of a number of social ills. Young persons from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds are simply more likely to leave school prematurely than are students from high SES backgrounds (Rumberger, 1983). Disadvantaged youngsters generally do not have highly educated parents who can serve as positive role models with respect to school. On the contrary, poverty often prevents parents from spending "quality time" with their children. Higher SES families generally reside in communities with higher levels of funding for schools; children from middle and upper middle class families are offered the opportunity to receive a relatively supportive, rewarding education. Economic hardship, on the other hand, operates on children as it does on adults. Children from poorer families may themselves need to work to supplement the family income, which is true in many Hispanic households, for example (Borus, Crowley, Rumberger, Santos, and Shapiro, 1980). Poor children are frequently deprived, in a number of contexts, of bo...