Cohen evaluation Flashcards
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✓ Cohen’s theory successfully offers an explanation of non-utilitarian deviance among the working class. Unlike Merton, whose concept of innovation only accounts for crime with a profit motive, Cohen’s ideas of status frustration, value inversion & alternative status hierarchy help to explain non-economic delinquency such as vandalism, fighting & truancy.
✓ A number of British studies have supported Cohen’s views – e.g. in James Patrick’s study ‘A Glasgow Gang Observed’ he found that the gang members felt at the bottom of society & sought ways to establish status through criminal & deviant activity.
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However, like Merton, Cohen wrongly assumes that working-class boys start off sharing middle-class success goals, only to reject these when they fail. Box argues that he ignores the possibility that they didn’t share these goals in the first place & so never saw themselves as failures. Paul Willis supports this – the boys in Willis’ study actually defined educational failure as ‘success’ because qualifications were not necessary for the types of factory jobs they wanted.
There is no discussion of females & is therefore accused of being ‘malestream’ by feminists.
Cohen over-emphasises the influence of education at the expense of other socialising agencies such as the family & peers. These agencies can often play a larger role in the reason for delinquent behaviour.
Matza conducted research which suggested that most delinquents are not committed to a delinquent subculture, nor are they totally opposed to society’s values. Rather they drift in & out of delinquency, so the idea of highly integrated & distinctive subcultures is a myth.
