Functionalists explaining Youth Deviance Flashcards
What is the Functionalist view on Youth Deviance?
They focus on the norms and values found in subcultures, they can be shared with the parent or mainstream culture - this is fulfilled in deviant ways by the group.
MERTON ‘STRAIN THEORY’
There are strains between goals or values of society and what they can achieve leads to deviant responses to the problems (e.g. innovation, ritualism or retreatism)
MILLER ‘WORKING-CLASS BOYS’
Working-class boys don’t aim for academic success as it’s a middle-class value.
Young working-class boys have a shared focal concern (e.g. getting in trouble, being tough and macho and they value freedom and excitement)
CLOWARD AND OHLIN ‘ILLEGITIMATE OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURE’
Deviancy is a problem in achieving the values of mainstream culture.
The deviant is unable to achieve valued goals and innovates using illegitimate or deviant means to get them.
Criminal subcultures develop in stable, slum areas with a hierarchy of criminal opportunity.
Conflict subcultures are formed in any unstable and disorganized group of areas with high mobility - there’s no access to an organized hierarchy, the youths turn to violence.
Retreatist subcultures are youths who fail to get legit terms and can’t get success from the mainstream culture or by joining gangs, so they retreat from society altogether.
The deviant means of achieving society’s goals becomes the accepted means e.g. deviant school subcultures and criminal subcultures.
COHEN ‘ STATUS FRUSTRATION’
Teenage boys desire status (respect in the eyes of one’s peers) as working-class boys are aware of mainstream culture. Status frustration is created by working-class boys feeling inferior compared to middle-class boys.
EVALUATION OF THE FUNCTIONALIST VIEW ON YOUTH DEVIANCE
COHEN assumes working-class boys react to their failures and MILLER disagree’s.
They view working-class culture as a sweeping generalization.
Working-class subcultures are subject to regional, ethnic and individual variations.
