Chapter 4

Question 1

Albert Cohen argues that working-class subcultures can be seen as a product of the conflict between working-class and middle-class cultures. Cohen saw crime and delinquency in terms of ?

Answer 1

Collective behaviour associated with the different aspirations, expectations, and lived experiences of two different class groupings.

Question 2

Cohens research indicated that youth do not necessarily accept the culturally transmitted social goal of economic success and financial accumulation that appeared to motivate adult offenders. Cohen posited that instead of financial success, these youth were searching for the status and respect they were unable to command in their schools and communities. These institutions were based on middle-class values and morals and incorporate what Cohen referred to as ? To judge youth.

Answer 2

“Middle-class measuring rods”
Which could lead to frustration by working class who were unable to meet the expectations. Which would manifest as trying to meet these expectations, rejecting them and developing their own working-class ones. Or gravitate towards other like-minded youth and form delinquent subcultures. Possible turning over middle-class clashes and expectations and doing the opposite of what is expected.

Question 3

Matza and Downes argued that working-class young people neither rejected nor inverted the dominant, culturally prescribed values of society. Instead they saw working-class youth subcultures as simply accentuating particular?

Answer 3

“Subterranean values” (risk, adventure, fun) that are part of normal society, but which are sometimes taken too far. In responses to restricted access to opportunity, young people resort to forms of “manufactured excitement” of their own creation.