Criminal Behaviour - Social - Gender Socialisation Flashcards
What statistic suggests gender solicitation players a role in criminality?
Studies show that 96.2% of individuals in prison are male. Which suggest that a risk factor for criminal behaviour is someone’s gender. This topic covers the different reasons why males may be so much more predisposed to criminality over females.
What are the three elements of Gender Solicitation?
Socialisation
Social Learning Theory
Social Control
What is meant by ‘socialisation’ and how does this apply to gender?
Socialisation is the process where people learn the norms, customs and skills necessary to integrate ourselves into society.
Gender identity is learned from socialisation within a culture.
Sutherland (1949) argued that the different patterns of socialisation experienced by boys and girls reinforces behaviour of criminality in boys (playfighting) and discourage it in girls.
In Socialisation, Sutherland claims that there are three key differences in the way boys and girls are brought up as an explanation for the different behaviours - what are these
Boys encouraged to be risk takers
Girls more closely supervised and controlled than boys (curfew for instance)
Society expectations of girls to be more conforming than boys.
These differences in socialisation become ingrained over time which results in more young men going out and committing crime.
What is Social learning theory and how does it explain gender stereotypes?
Theory by Bandura that states that behaviours are learnt through observation and imitation of role models.
There are three ways the child is encouraged into gender stereotypes.
Influence of Same Sex Parent
Operant Conditioning (punishment for not conforming / reward for conforming)
Vicarious Reinforcement (watching other people get rewarded for gender conforming behaviour)
Describe the key study supporting gender solicitation
KEY STUDY: Fagot (1978)
In this study, a woman observed children around 2 years old playing with their parents. They recorded what behaviour was punished and what behaviour was rewarded.
They found boys were rewarded for playing with toy bricks as well as rough play and punished for playing with more feminine toys like dolls.
While girls were rewarded for staying close to the parent and punished for rough and tumble play.
Describe the other key study supporting gender socialisation
KEY STUDY: COHEN (1955)
This study suggested that it is a more difficult process for boys than girls to conform to a role model. This is because often mothers stay at home to look after children while the Father is out at working providing for the family.
This means girls have an easily accessible same-sex role model while boys don’t. Cohen states that this results in boys rebelling against the feminine socialisation they are brought up in resulting in ‘deviant behaviours.
Messerchmidt (1993) Society’s concept of masculinity that leads to criminal behaviour within men. As they cannot express aggression in general society so turn to crime instead.
What is social control and give three examples of these limitations
Social Control
This refers to the degree of social control placed upon females compared to males. Within patriarchal societies, men dominate and are seen as superior compared to women
Women Limited:
At home: Girls not able to stay up as late as sons and can be dependent on care / provision from their parents. Learn to socialise within the home such as having sleepovers. Girls and encouraged to spend time in the home away from criminal opportunities.
At work: the glass ceiling prevents women from rising to senior positions meaning they have fewer opportunities to commit white collar crime.
In public: the way the media reports on crimes such as rape controls women by increasing the fear they have for being out in public, especially alone at night, this fear causes women to stay at home and therefore have less opportunity to commit crime.
Double jeopardy where if a girl commits a crime, she is breaking the law and rejecting her own femininity.
ADD EVAL
