Merton 1968 developed Durkheim's concept of 'anomie' into his 'strain theory' .

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Sociological Explanations Of Deviance

• Merton (1968) developed Durkheim's concept of
  'anomie' into his 'strain theory' .
• Taking the American Dream of economic success he
  pointed out that it was not possible for everyone
  to achieve this goal.
• So how do we cope?
• Some succeed by legal means, others turn to
  illegal paths, some give up on the goal and
  others make up their own goals

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Sociological Explanations Of Deviance

• Conformity
• The response of the majority
• They accept the goals of society and the legal
  means to achieve them
• Typical law abiding citizen

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Sociological Explanations Of Deviance

• Innovation
• Accept the goals of society - material success
• But reject legal ways of achieving them
• May turn to crime to achieve a good lifestyle
• Some turn to gambling to achieve this which is
  not illegal but not the normal route to success

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Sociological Explanations Of Deviance

• Ritualism
• Individuals lose sight of the goals - or give up
• But continue to obey the law
• Stuck in a rut
• May hope for lottery win

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Sociological Explanations Of Deviance

• Retreatism
• Individual loses sight of goals and the means
• May drop out or opt out of mainstream society

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Sociological Explanations Of Deviance

• Rebellion
• Individual rejects the goals and means of
  mainstream society
• And substitutes them with new ones
• These are often at odds with mainstream society
• eg revolutionary, terrorist etc

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Sociological Explanations Of Deviance

• Evaluating Merton's contribution
• He ignores power and social class issues
• Taylor 1971 sees Mertons model as a gigantic
  fruit machine
• only some players are rewardedbut nobody...
  asks who put the game there in the first place
• Merton fails to explain why an individual chooses
  one response over another
• Merton blindly accepts that there is a common
  core set of values shared by everyone

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Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Subcultural Theories

• Subcultures are usually defined as cultures
  within a culture e.g youth culture, working class
  subculture etc.
• Some of these groups are antagonistic towards
  mainstream society and are often referred to as
  countercultures (see Willis study in Education
  notes).
• Those groups who want to overthrow the main
  culture are called 'contracultures'

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Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Subcultural Theories

• Subcultural theory has its roots in the Chicago
  school which earlier this century identified a
  zoning process in the city whereby groups of
  similar cultural background occupied the same
  neighbourhood.

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Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Subcultural Theories

• Albert Cohen (1966)
• An American - he looked at subcultures and gangs
• WC male deviance was not necessarily related to
  economic ends
• Vandalism has no economic reward!
• He explained such acts in the context of status
  frustration
• i.e. Failures at school, often unemployed or in
  dead end jobs, lived in poor areas and therefore
  felt they had little stake in mainstream
  society.

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Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Evaluating Cohens views

• A number of British studies have supported
  Cohens views
• James Patrick A Glasgow Gang Observed 1973
  see methods notes
• David Hargreaves Deviance in the Classroom 1975
• Stephen Ball Beachside Comprehensive 1981
• Paul Willis Learning To Labour 1977
• (all in Education notes)

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Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Evaluating Cohens views

• 1. Interpretivists question the idea that we all
  share such a common value system.
• 2. All subcultural theories mainly focus on
  males. Feminists have used the phrase
  malestream sociology to show how females have
  been ignored in sociology (at least before the
  1970s)

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Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Subcultural Theories

• Cloward Ohlin 1961
• Looked at similar issues to Cohen and linked
  aspects of subcultural theory to Mertons concept
  of anomie-

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Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Subcultural Theories

• Criminal Subculture
• This occurs in areas where an established
  underworld already exists
• Young males serve apprenticeships in this world
• e.g. the world of the Kray twins

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Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Subcultural Theories

• Conflict Subculture
• No clear criminal underworld exists
• No apprenticeships to follow
• Young males turn to gangs
• e.g Patricks study of Glasgow gangs

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Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Subcultural Theories

• Retreatist Subculture
• These are seen as double failures
• Neither able to serve apprenticeships or join
  gangs
• Resort to drug abuse and petty crime.

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Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Matza 1964

• The above subcultural approaches have often been
  criticised for being too deterministic i.e they
  see the deviant as a product of his/her social
  background.
• Matza attempts to address this shortcoming by
  showing that we operate with double standards
  on the surface we share common law abiding
  values, but underneath we can occasionally let
  opposite values affect our behaviour

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Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Matza

• Subterranean Values
• People have a surface where they accept the
  mainstream values
• But underneath we have opposite values which
  surface from time to time
• e.g. a wife/husband commits adultery
• a boss gets drunk at the office party
• What Freud calls the monsters of the id

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Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Matza

• Techniques Of Neutralization
• How people explain untypical behaviour
• I was drunk Its Christmas etc.
• Everyone does it
• The difference is that some groups - the WC
  commit a lot of their acts in public.
• Consider acts of drunkeness on the street on a
  Saturday night and in a rugby club
• - who is more likely to be arrested

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Sociological Explanations Of Deviance
Matza

• Evaluating Matzas Work
• Matza adds some balance to the deterministic
  views of the structuralists
• But the techniques of neutralisation may be just
  excuses