Topic 2: Functionalist and Subcultural Explanations Flashcards
Durkheim’s negative side of deviance
Saw too much crime leading to social disruption
What did Durkheim believe?
A limited amount of crime was necessary for any society
Acts as a safety valve - relatively harmless way for someone to express their discontent
What does Durkheim’s ‘collective conscience’ provide?
Set of shared values that guide our actions and provides a framework with boundaries
Problems with Durkheim’s collective conscience (2)
The boundaries are unclear and change over time
What are the positive aspects of Durkheim’s collective conscience? Provide examples for each (3)
Reaffirms boundaries e.g. Someone hung in public
Changes values e.g. Changing attitudes towards cannabis use can lead to a change in laws
Social cohesion e.g. When horrific crimes have been committed the public comes together in shared outrage e.g. Paris attacks
Who came up with the term anomie? And why?
Durkheim
Too much crime has negative consequences
Define anomie
When society is left in a sense of normlessness as the collective conscience weakens
What could anomie cause and why?
More crime and deviance to occur as values of society are lost
What theory did Merton come up with?
The Strain Theory
What did Merton believe deviance was a result of?
Strain between:
The goals that a culture encourages individuals to achieve
Socially approved means of obtaining those desired goals
Provide an example supporting Merton’s goals and means
A well paid job is a shared goal in Britain and qualifications are the socially accepted means of achieving that goal
Evaluation of Merton: Valier -
Criticises the stress on the existence of common goals in society, there is always a variety of goals
What did Merton believe goals were linked to?
A person’s position in the social structure
Evaluation of Merton: Taylor, Walton and Young -
Accuses Merton of ignoring the crimes of the powerful while exaggerating the significance of w/c crime
Evaluation of Merton: Reiner -
Defended Merton, saying he did explain m/c crime by pointing out that there was no limit to success - the wealthy may still be greedy for more
Who came up with the illegitimate opportunity structure?
Cloward and Ohlin
What were Cloward and Ohlin’s views of the illegitimate opportunity structure?
For some subcultures in society a regular illegal career was available with recognised illegal means of obtaining society’s goals
What did Durkheim believe was inevitable?
Deviance
Why did Durkheim believe deviance was inevitable in society?
Not everyone buys into the collective sentiments of the general society
Who said that prostitution performs such a safety valve function without threatening the institution of the family
Cohen
What did Merton observe in American culture?
That they aspired for the American dream, and when they struggled to live up to this ideology, they experienced a strain to anomie and began to act normlessly
What definition also links with the functionalist perspective on the social construction of crime and deviance? How?
Absolutist
Also sees societies based on shared values (collective conscience)
What does the absolutist definition ignore?
Power relations in society, and the fact that some groups are able to impose their view on others - Marxist view of ruling class control
What is an example of anomie taking hold?
New Orleans
Post-Katrina crime wave
The structure, boundaries and community had gone as so many people had to leave suddenly
Reflected increase in crime rate
Who believed that all social change began with some form of deviance? Provide example
Durkheim, he believed that crime is functional
Suffragettes
Nelson Mandela
What did Murray analyse?
The Underclass
How did Murray explain the underclass?
The underclass are responsible for a high proportion of crime
Gangs are now formed commonly on economic grounds
There is a declining demand for unskilled labour, causing unemployment and an increase in crime as they are brought to reject mainstream norms and values
Durkheim’s positive side of deviance
Helps society change and remain dynamic
According to Cloward and Ohlin what were the 3 possible adaptations of the illegal opportunity structure?
- Criminal - role models, young offenders can work their way up the criminal hierarchy
- Conflict - groups brought up in a criminal environment are likely to turn to violence against other similar groups e.g. Violent gang ‘warfare’
- Retreatist - individual response with no opportunity to engage in the other two subcultures, retreats into alcohol or drugs
Evaluationof Cloward and Ohlin -
No discussion of female violence
Hard to just have three categories to define criminal activity into
Hobbs’ study of the illegal opportunity structure
Interviewed successful professional criminals and demonstrated how it is possible to have a career in crime if you have the right ‘qualities’ and connections
Who came up with status frustration?
Cohen
Cohen w status frustration - what was he interested in?
The fact that much offending was not economically motivated, but done simply for the thrill of the act
Provide an example of how offending is not always economically motivated
18% of crimes recorded by the BCS are vandalism
Explain Cohen’s view of lower class children
They wanted to hold mc values and aspirations, but lacked the means to attain success. So felt inadequate, leading to status frustration.
This resulted in the rejection of those very values and patterns of ‘acceptable behaviour’
School is one of the key areas where this behaviour plays out, as wc children are more likely to fail and feel humiliated, so in an attempt to gain status they invert mc values by behaving badly and engaging in anti-social behaviour to gain status
Evaluation of Cohen -
Research is solely on males, no discussion of females
The young ‘delinquents’ would have to have an understanding of what mc values even are to invert them
Cohen fails to prove that school really is the place where success and failure are demonstrated
Miller thought that deviancy was linked to…
The culture of lower-class males
What were the six ‘focal concerns’ that Miller thought were likely to lead to delinquency?
- Smartness - look good w wit
- Trouble - looking for trouble
- Excitement - search for thrills
- Toughness - physically stronger than others
- Autonomy - not to be pushed around
- Fate - with little chance to overcome what awaits them
How did Millers definition of focal concerns affect the working class?
Pushed them towards crime because of the values of their subculture
Evaluation of Miller -
Little evidence to show that these are specifically working class values
How did Box evaluate Millers focal concerns theory?
The values Miller defined could just as equally apply to males right across the class structure
In the UK evidenceof distinctive subcultures has been fairly difficult to obtain - which two British sociologists have discovered this?
Parker
Downes
How did Parker (British) apply Millers focal concerns?
To his study of wc ‘lads’ in inner-city Liverpool, which successfully showed these values
How did Downes (British) apply Millers focal concerns?
Young wc males in London
No evidence of distinctive values
Young wc males ‘dissociated’ from mainstream values
Concerned more w leisure than long term future - more likely to engage w petty crime
Main criticism of subcultural theories
Little evidence to demonstrate a distinct set of antisocial values
How did Matza combine the criticisms of subcultural theory?
There were no distinctive subcultural values
All groups in society used a shared set of subterranean values
What are subterranean values?
Set of deviant values that exist alongside the socially approved values, but are usually kept hidden/under control
They may emerge in social situations e.g. Parties/consumption of alcohol
What did Matza think of subterranean values?
That most of the time people kept control of their deviant desires
They rarely emerge
What did Matza say happened when subterranean values emerge?
We use techniques of neutralisation to provide justification for our deviant actions
How do you sum up Matza’s critique of subculture?
He is saying that all of us share deviant, ‘subcultural values’ and that it isn’t true that there are distinctive groups w their own values, different from the rest of us
What did Nightingale study in subculture: the paradox of inclusion
Young Black youth in inner city areas
What did Nightingale find out about subculture?
Subculture emerges from a desire to be a part of something, as they have been segregated and marginalised from mainstream society
Its therefore not about rejecting the common values
How did Nightingale explain Black children in this paradox of inclusion in the US?
They consume US culture through TV and emphasis on consumerism and violence
BUT are excluded economically, racially and politically from participating in that mainstream US culture
How did Nightingale explain how Black children compensated for the exclusion?
Overcompensated by identifying themselves w the wider culture
