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• Merton (1968) developed Durkheim's concept of 'anomie' into his 'strain theory' .
• Taking the American Dream of economic success he pointed out that it was not possible for everyone to achieve this goal.
• So how do we cope? • Some succeed by legal means, others turn
to illegal paths, some give up on the goal and others make up their own goals
Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
ConformityThe response of the majority
They accept the goals of society and the legal means to achieve them
Typical ‘law abiding’ citizen
Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
InnovationAccept the goals of society - material success
But reject legal ways of achieving them
May turn to crime to achieve a good lifestyle
Some turn to gambling to achieve this which is not illegal but not the ‘normal’ route to success
Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
RitualismIndividuals lose sight of the goals - or give up
But continue to obey the law
Stuck in a rut
May hope for lottery win
Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
RetreatismIndividual loses sight of goals and the means
May ‘drop out’ or ‘opt out’ of mainstream society
Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Rebellion
Individual rejects the goals and means of mainstream society
And substitutes them with new ones
These are often at odds with mainstream society
eg revolutionary, terrorist etc
Sociological Explanations Of DevianceEvaluating Merton's contribution• He ignores power and social class issues
Taylor 1971 sees Merton’s model as a gigantic fruit machine
‘only some players are rewarded…but nobody... asks who put the game there in the first place’
• Merton fails to explain why an individual chooses one response over another
• Merton blindly accepts that there is a common core set of values shared by everyone
• Subcultures are usually defined as cultures within a culture e.g youth culture, working class subculture etc.
• Some of these groups are antagonistic towards mainstream society and are often referred to as countercultures (see Willis study in Education notes).
• Those groups who want to overthrow the main culture are called 'contracultures'
Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Subcultural Theories
• Subcultural theory has its roots in the Chicago school which earlier this century identified a zoning process in the city whereby groups of similar cultural background occupied the same neighbourhood.
Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Subcultural Theories
Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Albert Cohen (1966)An American - he looked at subcultures and gangs
WC male deviance was not necessarily related to economic ends
Vandalism has no economic reward!
He explained such acts in the context of ‘status frustration’
i.e. Failures at school, often unemployed or in dead end jobs, lived in poor areas and therefore felt they had little stake in ‘mainstream’ society.
Subcultural Theories
• A number of British studies have supported Cohen’s views
• James Patrick – A Glasgow Gang Observed 1973 – see methods notes
• David Hargreaves – Deviance in the Classroom 1975
• Stephen Ball – Beachside Comprehensive 1981
• Paul Willis – Learning To Labour 1977• (all in Education notes)
Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Evaluating Cohen’s views
1. Interpretivists question the idea that we all share such a common value system.
2. All subcultural theories mainly focus on males. Feminists have used the phrase ‘malestream’ sociology to show how females have been ignored in sociology (at least before the 1970’s)
Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Evaluating Cohen’s views
Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Cloward & Ohlin 1961 Looked at similar issues to Cohen and
linked aspects of subcultural theory to Merton’s concept of anomie:-
Subcultural Theories
Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Criminal SubcultureThis occurs in areas where
an established underworld already exists
Young males serve ‘apprenticeships’ in this world
e.g. the world of the Kray twins
Subcultural Theories
Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Conflict SubcultureNo clear criminal underworld existsNo ‘apprenticeships’ to followYoung males turn to gangse.g Patrick’s study of Glasgow gangs
Subcultural Theories
Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Retreatist SubcultureThese are seen as ‘double’ failuresNeither able to serve ‘apprenticeships’ or
join gangsResort to drug abuse and petty crime.
Subcultural Theories
• The above subcultural approaches have often been criticised for being too deterministic – i.e they see the deviant as a product of his/her social background.
• Matza attempts to address this shortcoming by showing that we operate with double standards – on the surface we share common law abiding values, but underneath we can occasionally let ‘opposite’ values affect our behaviour
Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Matza 1964
Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Subterranean ValuesPeople have a surface where they accept
the mainstream valuesBut underneath we have opposite values
which surface from time to timee.g. a wife/husband commits adultery a boss gets drunk at the office partyWhat Freud calls the ‘monsters of the id’
Matza
Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Techniques Of NeutralizationHow people explain ‘untypical’ behaviour‘I was drunk’ ‘It’s Christmas’ etc.‘Everyone does it’The difference is that some groups - the WC
commit a lot of their acts in public.Consider acts of drunkeness on the street on a
Saturday night and in a rugby club- who is more likely to be arrested
Matza
Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Evaluating Matza’s Work Matza adds some balance to the
deterministic views of the structuralists
But the techniques of neutralisation may be just excuses
Matza