Sociology 32306: Outline, Week Five
VIII. Anomie theory: Robert Merton
Anomie (Durkheim) = without meaning
A. Rate of societal deviance a product of the disjunction between culturally prescribed goals and culturally prescribed means... a society like the U.S., which prescribes similar success goals for everybody but in which minorities/lower social classes have much less access will produce large amounts of deviant behavior.
B. Typology: norms about goals and means
| Behavior Type | Cultural goals | Cultural means |
| Conformity | + | + |
| Innovation | + | - |
| Ritualism | - | + |
| Retreatism | - | - |
| Rebellion | +/- | +/- |
C. How is this different from rational choice theory?
D. For those who can't expect culturally prescribed means to produce culturally prescribed goals, what determines which variety of deviance will be prevalent?
Symbolic Interactionism Theories--the social construction of reality.
"Can we bring ourselves to realize just how overwhelmingly much of what we mean by 'reality' has been built up through nothing but our symbol systems?" Kenneth Burke
"What men define as real is real in its consequences." W.I. Thomas
"Talk is the fundamental material of human relations." Scott and Lyman
"Society is an interweaving of mental selves. I imagine your mind and especially what your mind thinks about my mind, and what your mind thinks about what my mind thinks about your mind. I dress my mind before you and expect that you will dress yours before mine." Charles Horton Cooley, talking about the looking glass self
I. Differential association: Edwin Sutherland
High crime neighborhoods characterized not by social disorganization but by differential social organization--a set of practices and cultural definitions that are at odds with the law.
A. 4 Key Propositions
1. Criminal behavior learned in interaction with others in a process of communication.
2. That learning occurs primarily in intimate personal groups and includes not only techniques, but also motives, rationalizations, and attitudes.
3. Differential association varies in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity; a person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions unfavorable to the law
4. The learning process involves the same mechanisms whether you are learning criminality or conformity
II. Lyman and Scott: "Accounts"
A. Definition: a statement made by a social actor to explain unanticipated or untoward behavior
B. Two types of accounts
1. Excuses: socially approved vocabularies for mitigating or relieving responsibility when conduct is questioned.
In Scully and Marolla's treatment of convicted rapists, these are the "admitters."
2. Justifications: socially approved vocabularies for showing that in this instance, an otherwise negative behavior is permissible or even required.
Scully and Marolla's "deniers"
C. Matza and Sykes: Techniques of neutralization... part of what makes possible the deviant behavior of juvenile delinquents are these excuses and justifications
1. Denial of injury
2. Denial of the victim
3. Condemnation of the condemners
4. Appeal to loyalties
III. Social reconstruction of self: the importance of meaning and of community
A. 12-step programs (modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous)... Parents Anonymous in "Generations of Violence"
B. Black Muslims and prison
C. The Azuza Christian Community in Boston ("What Can We Do About Violence? part III")
TPS: How can we use symbolic interactionism to understand the work of Reverend Eugene Rivers and the Azuza Christian community in turning around some of these young men's lives?
IV. Labeling theory
A. Moral entrepreneurs: individuals, organizations, or social movements that take the lead in getting a behavior defined as criminal or deviant
1. Howard Becker, The Outsiders--the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937
Reader's Guide to the Periodical Literature
2. Kathleen Tierney, "The Battered Women's Movement and the Creation of the Wife-Beating Problem." Social Problems. February 1982.
"Wife beating has become the object of media attention and government policy (generating changes in law and law enforcement) not because of an increase in its frequency, or because the public has become more concerned, but because a social movement developed in the 1970s to help battered women."
New York Times Index
B. Deviant careers
1. Becker: "On Becoming a Marijuana User"
2. Edwin Lemert
a. Primary deviance: deviance carried out by people who see themselves and are seen by others as basically conformist
b. Secondary deviance: a negative label gets applied so publicly and powerfully that it becomes part of someone's identity
V. Differential opportunity theory: Richard Cloward--a theory combining anomie and differential association.
Remember Merton's anomie theory: an open question why people who are blocked from using conventional means to achieve success goals will choose innovation vs. retreatism vs. rebellion.
Cloward: Just as opportunities for success through conformity are not evenly distributed, opportunities for crime and for learning crime are not evenly distributed
In neighborhoods where legitimate opportunities for success are scarce, three different types of gangs, depending on criminal activities and traditions
A. Criminal gangs (especially drugs)
B. Conflict gangs
C. Retreatist gangs