YD: SOCIAL CLASS, GENDER & ETHNICITY Flashcards
What do official measures of crime suggest about the background of deviant youths?
Youths from working-class backgrounds are much more likely to become involved in deviance and criminality.
What does Barnado’s show about children in the youth justice system?
Predominantly drawn from the poorest and most disadvantaged families.
What did Jacobson find when researching the background of 200 children in custody?
Found multiple disadvantages, with around 3/4 known to have absent fathers, half having lived in a deprived home and just under half having ran away at some point in their lives.
What did the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development suggest?
That socio-economic deprivation was a key predictor of future criminality.
Why is this viewpoint of deviance and class questionable?
It is debatable as to whether working-class youths actually commit more crime, or if they’re just caught more.
What has deviance and criminality from working-class youths become to police?
More likely to be visible and targeted by police and criminal justice institutions.
(Use Chambliss’ study to demonstrate this).
What do police surveys show about crime in relation to gender?
Overwhelmingly male activity.
What does Home Office data show about young men aged 10-17? What about young women?
Were found to be responsible for 20% of all police-recorded crime in 2009/10 and young women responsible for only 4%.
What does Campbell’s study suggest from self-report studies filled in by young people?
The difference is not as great as for adults, or as great as the official statistics suggest.
What does official crime data suggest about the peak ages for offending?
Girls = 15 Boys = 18
What does the number of women prisoners between 1994 and 2004 show?
The number of women in prison in England and Wales increased by 150%
What did Muncie argue about female crime?
Small rises in recorded crime created a moral panic about female offending and ‘girl gangs’.
What ethnic group makes up the overwhelming majority of crime and deviance?
White British background, as they make up the majority of the population.
Where is there a disproportionate number of youths in the criminal justice system?
Among African-Caribbean youths.
What do Home Office statistics show about young people from a black ethnic background?
Accounted for 21% of young people in custody in 2012/13.
How much more are black people stopped and searched according to Home Office figures?
Black people were stopped and searched 7 times more than white people in 2009/10 and 6 times more in 2006/7.
How much of the stop and search figures are made up by people from an Asian ethnic group?
9.6%
How much did arrest rates among asians rise in 2005/6?
By 13%, the largest rise for any ethnic group.
What is an issue with the official statistics for ethnicity and crime?
There is a discrepancy in the way black and white young offenders are dealt with within the criminal justice system.
What important thing do crime statistics ignore according to Lea and Young?
Most UK crime is ‘intra-racial’ meaning it takes place within ethnic communities.
What do Lea and Young argue will come out of people understanding this idea of ‘intra-racial’ crime?
Explanations for the high rates of black criminality can be sought from within the black community.
What did Young believe drew working-class youths towards gangs?
‘intensity of exclusion’, incorporated feelings of resentment, humiliation and anger fuelled by economic deprivation.
What analogy did Harding use to explain how working-class youths become involved in gang culture?
Casino analogy - saw gangs as a social arena where members struggle for status, position and survival. Success is determined by accruing and retaining ‘street capital’.
What did White state about where gangs arise?
Wherever and whenever conditions of poverty and social exclusion become evident.
What does Faludi state about masculinity of deviant boys?
Young males committing crime is not ‘deviant’ at all, it is an expression of the qualities we admire in society.
Which three sociologists can be linked to masculinity and youth deviance?
Messerschmidt, Harding and Campbell.
What does Bourdieu argue in criticism of arguments for masculinity as a cause of deviance?
Ignores the ‘symbolic violence’ perpetrated by more powerful, older men in society.
What does Connell reject?
Common-sense, biological or psychological explanations for male violence.
How does Heidensohn explain the lower incidence of female deviance?
Focuses on social control, girls are subject to much more control in their behaviour - for example Lees and the peer group.
What did Klein state about female gang members? How do Pearce and Pitts support this?
Female gang members commit equally violence acts.
Peace and Pitts estimated that 12,500 girls have close involvement with gangs.
What did both Mac an Ghaill and Archer and Yamashita find in their studies of boys and anti-school subcultures?
Displayed hegemonic masculinity, with the boys in A&Y’s study being attached to a ‘bad boy’ image of hyperheterosexuality.
What did Jackson find about anti-school subcultures among girls?
‘ladishness’ in schools, as it was cool to be clever but not to work hard.
What did Blackman find when studying female anti-educational attitudes?
The New Wave Girls, who resisted the expectations of their gender and presented an anti-school not anti-education attitude.
What did Nightingale find in their study of young black males in Philadelphia?
They consumed the same mainstream US culture as everyone else, but were excluded both racially and economically, so they’d turn to illegitimate means to achieve.
What did Bourgois find in their study of African-American drug dealers in NY?
Discussed the ‘anguish of growing up poor’ in the richest city in the world. Saw it as understandable why they would get into drug-dealing rather than a minimum wage job in the city.
What did Nightingale conclude from Bourgois and Nightingale’s studies?
‘The paradox of inclusion’, the desire to be included drives the desire for success and consumerism.
What did Sewell state about anti-education attitudes among black males?
The culture of the streets was anti-education, valuing style and instant gratification and seeing educational success as feminine.
What were the three attitudes displayed by African-Caribbean boys towards school according to Merton?
Conformists
Innovators (pro-education but anti-school)
Retreatists
What did the girls in Mirza’s study do?
Adopted ‘strategic rationalisation’ to avoid what they perceived to be wasteful and unproductive lesson time.
What did Archer believe young Muslim males demonstrated in the peer group?
Demonstrated their masculine and religious identity in peer groups, against a backdrop of Islamophobia.
What did Strand and Wilson identify was a key reason for anti-school subcultures among African-Caribbean boys?
Negative peer relationships were a significant issue in the underachievement of African-Caribbean boys.
What did Hall and Jefferson state about resistance through rituals?
WC youths use fashion trends and rituals against low socio-economic position.
What does Smart state about control?
“Girls are prisoners in their own homes”.
What does Alexander state about asian gangs?
‘myth of asian gangs’ the media make it out to be much worse than it actually is.
What three anti school subcultures did Mac an Ghaill find related to class?
‘Ordinary’ lads, ‘academic’ lads and ‘macho’ lads.
