The Chicago School

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The Chicago School Social Disorganization
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Social Disorganization Theories

• Scientific Study of Societal "Laws
• Rapid Social Change modernization in U.S.
• Industrialization (WWI)
• Agriculture
• Factories

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Social Disorganization Theories

• Urbanization
• Migration
• Immigration
• Instability (strain on social structures) Social
  Disorganization

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Chicago School Theories and Research

• Exponential growth, 1850-1940
• Migration
• Immigration
• Social Disorganization
• Wm. Isaac Thomas (1863-1947) Florian Znaniecki
  (1882-1958)
• The Polish Peasant in Europe America

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Chicago School Theories and Research

• "a decrease of the influence of existing social
  rules of behavior upon individual members of
  the group
• Definition of the situation
• Dealing with new situation
• Generational effect
• Younger more likely to be deviant

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Chicago Growth, 1850-1940
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Chicago School Ecological Models

• Robert Park and Ernest Burgess (1886-1966)
• Ecology
• Process of invasion settlement of a territory
• Settlement patterns
• Concentric Zones

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Chicago School Ecological Models

• Burgess diagram of concentric zones

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Ecology Concentric Zones
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Chicago School Ecological Models

• Zones
• Central Business District
• The Loop
• Zone II (zone in transition)
• High population turnover (4-7 years)
• Zone III
• Workingmens homes
• Zone IV
• Residential zone (single-family homes apartments)

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Chicago School Crime Deviance

• Louis Wirth "Urbanism as a Way of Life"
• Frederick Thrasher Gangs
• Daniel Bell
• (Crime as an American Way of Life)
• Thorsten Sellin Culture Conflict

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Social Disorganization Replications

• Ecology and Juvenile Delinquency
• Bernard Lander (Towards an Understanding of
  Juvenile Delinquency, 1954)
• Delinquency is ecological
• David Bordua (1959)
• Unattached individuals (ratio)
• Roland Chilton (1964)
• Home ownership

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Social Disorganization Replications Factors
Preventing Deviance

• More Recent Research Cross-Cultural
• Kirson Weinberg Ghana
• Marshall Clinard and Daniel Abbott
• Kampala, Uganda
• (Kiseruji and Namuwongo)

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Social Disorganization Replications Factors
Preventing Deviance

• Namuwongo

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Social Disorganization Replications Factors
Preventing Deviance

• Travis Hirschi The Social Bond
• attachment the strength of one's ties to others
• commitment degree tied to
• convention
• system of rewards
• involvement
• proportion of time spent in conventional
  pursuits

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Social Disorganization Replications Factors
Preventing Deviance

• Belief
• Degree of acceptance of conventional norms

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Social Control (in Social Disorganization
Theories)

• Social Reform Restore Normative Stability
• The Chicago Area Project
• Boston "Total community delinquency control
  project"
• Mixed results
• Terrence Morris
• The Criminal Area (1966)
• Inequality

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Evaluating Social Disorganization Theories

• Strengths
• Transcends naive individualistic theories
• Deviants are not that different from "normal"
  people
• Considerable amount of research, empirical
  support

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Evaluating Social Disorganization Theories

• Weaknesses
• How "disorganization" is defined/ conceptualized
• equates different forms of organization with
  disorganization
• Cause and effect
• Deviance as example/indicator of and caused by
  soc. disorganization
• Ignores "respectable" forms of deviance
• Ignores inequality