Subcultural Perspectives Assignment | Online Homework Help

What would Cohen suggest that schools should do to reduce the attractiveness of youth gangs for young men? Do you think that Cohen’s theory maintains its value in contemporary society?

9.2 Introduction to Subcultural Perspectives

The subculture theories that we will cover in this lesson have their roots in the Chicago School and in Merton’s theory of anomie and strain. The subcultural theories began to emerge in the 1950s; World War II has ended and North America has entered a time of prosperity and a rise in consumerism. At this point in history, middle class values are dominant and we start to see increases in the number of people pursuing post-secondary education. This is partly due to the fact that military veterans were able to attend college for free when they returned from the war. American cities are becoming increasingly urban and diverse and the middle class are leaving the city centres and moving out to the suburbs (think about the concentric zone theory!). The public and sociologists alike view social problems as being concentrated in the city centres among people of the lower classes. In the late 1940s and 50s there was a revival of neo-classical notions of responsibility – common sense ideas suggest that poverty and crime are the result of people being lazy and not working hard enough. People still cling to the idea that anyone can be successful if they only put in enough effort and work hard enough.

 

With the rise of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, people began to become more open to the idea that social factors and social structure may play a role in poverty and crime.

 

The subculture theories of the 1950s, for the most part, concentrate on youth delinquency and youth gangs, although there are some that can be applied to adult crime as well.

 

 

9.3 Albert Cohen and Status Frustration

In 1955 Albert Cohen published a modified version of Merton’s theory of anomie in an attempt to explain higher rates of delinquency among lower-class youth. Cohen was critical of Merton because he felt that Merton’s explanation made it appear as though individuals’ reactions to strain are uninfluenced by their interactions with the people around them. Cohen also took exception to Merton’s depiction of criminal (innovative) behaviour as a rational means to a desired end or goal—that is, utilitarian. While some types of crime may be rational and utilitarian, Cohen argued that this does not to apply to most of the activities of delinquent gangs that are concentrated in lower-class neighbourhoods. In his book, Delinquent Boys (1955), Cohen developed the idea that lower-class delinquency occurs as a subcultural adaptation to problems generated by the domination of middle class culture in society.

 

Like Merton, Cohen argues that North American society encourages all its members to aspire highly, but at the same time makes it very difficult for some groups to be successful. According to Cohen, the dominant middle-class culture of North America values such things as delayed gratification, self-control, ambition, academic and occupational success, good manners, and respect for property. While both lower and middle class youth desire high status, lower class boys are much more likely to fail in attaining the status and rewards commonly awarded to those who are successful or high achievers in the public school system. In the competition for academic and social success in school, children from middle class backgrounds have a decided advantage over their lower-class counterparts. Middle class parents exert considerable pressure on their children to accept and abide by these values. As a result, Cohen argued, academically, middle-class children are more highly motivated, more diligent, more articulate, and better able to defer gratification. Behaviourally, they are more likely to be obedient, polite, and respectful. The socialization of lower-class children, however, is more relaxed; their parents are busy working to provide and are less concerned or have less time and energy to ensure their children’s conforming behaviour. This difference in socialization becomes problematic when children enter school. The school is an institution governed by middle-class values and most teachers are themselves middle class. Not surprisingly, in light of their early socialisation, many lower-class children do not do well in school. Lower-class youths, having learned different norms and values do not readily meet the standards of attitude and performance that the education system demands of them. Thus, they do not achieve status through education, and given their parents’ limited resources, they do not acquire status from their families. Unable to compete effectively, and faced with constant failure to achieve middle-class status, lower-class children experience considerable frustration or strain and a loss of self-esteem. Cohen calls this Status Frustration.

 

9.3.1 Reaction Formation and Delinquent Subculture

According to Cohen, the consequence of status frustration is the formation of a subculture that incorporates a rival hierarchy of statuses and values through a process of reaction formation. This basically means that frustrated children react to what they see as the unfairness of their situation by redefining the acceptable goals to a level that they can reasonable compete for and attain. They create a subculture in which lower-class youth can compete on more equal terms for status that is more meaningful to them. Notably, the process of reaction formation is a collective process for adaptation to strain or status frustration, unlike Merton’s theory, which focuses on individual modes of adaptation. Cohen argues that the process by which lower-class youth compete for status may involve malicious, negativistic, non-utilitarian, delinquent or criminal acts.

 

Cohen argued that the criteria for status in the lower-class youth subculture are precisely the opposite of those valued in the dominant middle-class culture. Cohen identified five (5) key characteristics of lower-class delinquent gangs. Together, these comprise the Delinquent Subculture:

1. Non-utilitarianism:We usually assume that when people steal things, they steal because they want or need them or when they engage in criminal actions it is to accomplish a purpose (e.g. revenge). However Cohen noted that some gang stealing and other crime has no such motivation at all. Some crimes seen to occur “just for the hell of it” and this non-utilitarian or non-purposeful crime is a valued activity that has power and status attached to it.
2. Maliciousness:Cohen argued that much delinquent gang activity is just plain mean—it has no purpose other than to cause problems for people, to make them unhappy or uncomfortable or to hurt them. This goes along with the characteristic of non-utilitarianism. Acts of vandalism are good examples of this type of malicious behaviour, as are random acts of violence.
3. Negativism:Cohen observed that delinquents have a set of values and live by rules that are not just different from those of “respectable” people – they are the negative polarity of middle-class norms. That is, the delinquent subculture takes its norms from the larger culture, but turns them upside down and values the negative or opposite.
4. Short-Run Hedonism:Hedonism, of course, is the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Cohen argued that lower-class delinquents have little interest in long-run goals, in planning activities, budgeting time, or in activities involving knowledge and skills that are acquired only through practice and study; he argues that delinquents seek immediate gratification—they are impatient, impetuous and out for fun, with little consideration of the costs and gains that might be in the future.
5. Group Autonomy:Delinquent gang members resist any kind of restraint on their behaviour, except that imposed informally by fellow gang members. They defy or ignore the authority exercised by parents, teachers and other agents of social control. They view the group as being of primary importance and resist restrictions on their individual and collective activities.

 

9.3.2 Status Frustration and Gender

Cohen also observed that virtually all delinquent gang members are male; at the time he felt that girls rarely engaged in delinquency and when they do, it is almost always in the form of sexual promiscuity. Cohen wants to understand how we can account for the disproportionate involvement of lower-class boys and men in delinquent subcultures and activities? He believes that the answer lies in the strains that these boys experience when they are confronted with and judged by middle class standards.

 

Status frustration, for Cohen, is a male problem because a primary component of the masculine role is status attainment. He argues that men and boys measure their manhood by comparing their performance to that of other men and boys, whether it be in stealing, fighting, athletic contests, work, or intellectual achievement. Cohen argues that men are always comparing themselves to one another. Delinquency and the assertion and risk-taking that come along with it—however it might be condemned on moral grounds—is considered to be masculine and asserts a level of masculine achievement.

 

Girls, on the other hand, Cohen says, are preoccupied with developing relationships, especially romantic relationships, since marriage has historically been the most important goal for girls and women and also the best means for improving their status. As Cohen put it, “we do not suggest that girls are in any sense ‘naturally’ more interested in boys than boys are in girls. We mean that the female’s station in society, the admiration, respect and property that she commands, depend to a much greater degree on the kinds of relationships that she established with members of the opposite sex.” Consequently, Cohen argues that when girls are delinquent, it is in feminine ways—they are sexually delinquent or promiscuous to attract the attention of boys and men.

 

9.3.3 Delinquent Subculture as Collective Adaptation

The Delinquent Subculture, then, is lower-class boys’ collective solution to the problem of status frustration: since they cannot acquire status by conforming to middle-class values, they reject these values. They replace them with a new set of values — the delinquent subculture— against which they can be judged as successful, at least by their peers. In the gang, they can improve their masculinity and raise their status, especially if they excel in delinquent activities.

 

This delinquent adaptation is passed down culturally. Cohen argues that the more a frustrated, lower class youth interacts with those in the delinquent subculture, the more likely that he will take up the definitions and behaviours of the subculture, so we have a bit of learning theory and differential association involved here too. Whether disadvantaged children become deviant or not depends on the strength of their interaction with members of the delinquent subculture.

 

For both Merton and Cohen, the decisive causal factor in the production of deviant behaviour is the disjunction between the social goals of material success and elevated status on one hand and the legitimate means of attainment – occupational and educational achievement on the other. The lower classes lack sufficient access to legitimate means and consequently engage in delinquent and criminal activity. Cohen extends the horizon of anomie theory by using it to explain non-utilitarian, as opposed to utilitarian deviant acts. He also expands the explanatory framework by documenting the connection between status frustration and the formation of delinquent subculture.

 

9.3.4 Categorizing Cohen

While Cohen’s perspective has some logic and appeal, it has also been the subject of extensive criticism – we’ll talk about the criticisms of this type of theory, in general, after we’ve looked at several other theories like it.

 

Cohen’s work is evidently in the realm of sociological positivism; he is looking for structural / cultural explanations for deviant behaviours engaged in by individuals and groups. This theory is also a consensus theory – while Cohen recognizes the existence of subcultures whose values and norms run counter to the mainstream, he assumes that even those within these subcultures understand that their actions are counter to the norm. They accept the legitimacy of the middle-class value structure and, rather than attempt to compete with or change that structure, create a counter structure in which they can succeed outside of mainstream society.

 

This theory is a bridging theory that engages with both micro and macro-sociological concepts in the sense that it addresses the role of culture and class structure, and how that affects individual experiences, creating strain or status frustration. In this sense, it is both a structural and a processual theory considering the impact of structural factors on individual behaviour and how individuals engage differently with the circumstances in which they find themselves.

 

9.4 Richard Cloward & Lloyd Ohlin – Differential Opportunity Theory

Another response to Merton’s anomie theory, as well as to Cohen’s theory of delinquent subculture, was published by Richard Cloward in 1959 and elaborated by Cloward and his colleague, Lloyd Ohlin, in their book Delinquency and Opportunity, published the following year (1960). Their work includes the proposition that delinquency and crime are possible responses to the strain that people experience when legitimate means to success are blocked or closed to them. However, they add an important new concept: Differential Opportunity.

 

Cloward and Ohlin accept much of Merton’s argument—they agree that US culture emphasises material success, but not everyone has equal access to legitimate means to achieve these success goals, despite a dominant ideology of egalitarianism or equality. In response to the frustration induced by this, members of deprived groups may utilise illegitimate means to attain material success. Innovation becomes their adaptation to the lack of legitimate opportunities to be successful by the standards of the dominant middle class culture. Yet, they note, not everyone who experiences such strain innovates—why not?

 

According to Cloward and Ohlin, the key is Differential Opportunity. It is not enough simply to be motivated to deviate; the potential deviant must be in an environment conducive to learning deviance and, once trained, must have the opportunity to engage in deviation. Just as anomie theory argues that legitimate means are not equally available to all in the social structure—Cloward and Ohlin maintain that illegitimate means are not equally accessible either. “Roles, whether conforming or deviant in context are not necessarily freely available; access to them depends upon a variety of factors such as one’s socio-economic position, age, sex, ethnic affiliation, personality characteristics and the like. . . only those neighbourhoods in which crime flourishes as a stable, [emergent] institution are fertile criminal learning environments for the young” (Cloward & Ohlin, 1960, 147-148). In other words, if you want to have the opportunity to engage in deviance, you need to live among people who can provide those opportunities, or in a situation which gives rise to such opportunities. The opportunities available to one will differ, based on their social location and associates.

 

9.4.1 Differential Opportunity Structures and Delinquent Subcultures

Cloward and Ohlin concentrate on the differential opportunity structures of one deprived group—lower class male youths in large urban centres. They argue that there are three different types of lower-class neighbourhoods, each of which gives rise to a different type of delinquent subculture.

1. Criminal Subculture:In relatively stable neighbourhoods, where most community members know each other, youths are socialised into a criminal subculture that values material gain through illegitimate means. In this type of neighbourhood, adult criminal role models are plentiful and youths may become their apprentices. Through these intimate contacts, lower class boys learn techniques for committing crimes and are integrated into a network that includes corrupt police and politicians, and shady lawyers, willing and able to facilitate criminal activity.
2. Conflict Subculture:In less stable neighbourhoods, a conflict subculture is more likely to develop. These neighbourhoods are characterised by social disorganisation (as described by Shaw and McKay). Most residents in these neighbourhoods live in large housing projects that generate a kind of social isolation and anonymity. The illegitimate opportunity structure, then, does not facilitate the pursuit of a long-term criminal career through networks, but instead promotes the use of violence to attain status or a “reputation,” which allows an individual to engage in drug dealing and other kinds of illegal activities without interference from others.
3. Retreatist Subculture:Cloward and Ohlin note that there are individuals in all lower class communities who are unsuccessful in both the legitimate and illegitimate opportunity structures. These “double failures” form a retreatist subculture. They withdraw from the lifestyle of their community and turn to drugs, alcohol, or some other form of escapism. This groups forms a new internal order of goals and criteria of achievement such that individuals may still gain some form of limited status within the retreatist subculture.

 

9.4.2 Categorizing Cloward & Ohlin

Cloward and Ohlin emphasized the importance of opportunity structures for the commission of crime and other forms of deviant behaviour. They also recognized the role that social learning plays in criminal behaviour and careers. Therefore, like Cohen’s theory, this is a bridging theory that addresses both macro and micro-sociological factors, and deals with structural and processual forces that impact on individual behaviour. In addition, like Cohen, they depict delinquent subcultures as collective responses to strain, rather than individual adaptations.

 

Nevertheless, there are some problems with Cloward and Ohlin’s theory. By locating crime and delinquency only within lower-class communities, they fall into the same trap as other strain theories; they overlook the widespread violation of the law by members of other social classes, specifically the upper class. The crimes of powerful people are different, but no less harmful, and by focusing on lower-class crime, Cloward and Ohlin and other strain theorists dismiss the illegitimate opportunity structure that is available to dominant groups in our society: the middle class and the wealthy, white people and men. If we understand opportunities as being differentially structured, we start to see that positions of privilege offer other opportunities for deviance and for different kinds of criminal behaviour.

 

Some elements of Differential Opportunity theory have been criticised because they are not supported by empirical data. For example – researchers have been unable to locate in real life the three distinct types of subcultures that Cloward and Ohlin identified. In particular, the retreatist subculture—a gang of lower class youth organised solely for the purposes of drug use—does not appear to exist at all in real life. Instead, most gang members, and many non-gang members, use drugs, fight, vandalize property, and steal, but no gang or group of young people does these things all the time. Young gang members in lower class neighbourhoods spend the majority of their time “hanging out” with friends, talking, watching TV, listening to music, and doing the kinds of things that many young, non-gang members do and the organization of their association does not appear to revolve around delinquent or criminal opportunities.

 

In addition, Cloward and Ohlin’s theory ignores the role of gender in delinquency and crime – although later feminist theorists did apply their theories to the study of female crime in the 1970s.

9.5 Miller (1958) and Lower-Class Focal Concerns

Walter B. Miller, like Cohen, studied delinquent gangs. According to Miller, delinquent gangs form within the lower class community itself. In Miller’s view, Cohen examined lower-class gang delinquency from the perspective of the middle class, and that is why Cohen characterised lower-class delinquency as non-utilitarian, malicious, and negativistic, because he did not understand the behaviours from the perspectives of the people who engaged in them. In contrast, Miller maintains that such delinquent behaviour is stable and essentially ritualized—it serves to support and maintain the basic features of the lower-class way of life. Miller disagreed with Cohen that the norms of the lower-class delinquent subculture were merely the reverse of the normal, middle-class values. He argued that “lower-class culture is a distinctive tradition, many centuries old, with an integrity of its own” (1958:19).

 

Miller identified six focal concerns of lower-class culture. Although these concerns are not restricted solely to the lower class, he said that they are given distinct priority and weighting by members of the lower-class, relative to members of the middle class.

 

The Lower-Class Focal Concerns, in order of importance, are:

1. Trouble:According to Miller, getting into and staying out of trouble are major preoccupations of all lower-class people. Trouble can have a variety of meanings and may characterize many situations— for example, unwelcome involvement with the police or other officials; fighting or sexual adventures (for men); sexual activity resulting in unwanted pregnancy (for women). Trouble offers the opportunity for lower-class individuals to demonstrate their toughness and smartness, and the drama associated with avoiding and dealing with “trouble” are a daily feature of life.
2. Toughness:The most important aspects of toughness are physical prowess, “masculinity” (including lack of sentimentality/emotion and the view of women as “sex objects”) and bravery in the face of physical threat. Men and boys, in particular, seek out opportunities to exhibit their toughness.
3. Smartness:In lower-class culture, smartness does not refer to good grades in school or mastery of a body of knowledge often called culture (art, literature and so on). Rather, smartness refers to a person’s ability to avoid being outwitted, duped, or conned and their ability to be opportunistic and to take advantage of situations for their own gain. This is what is often referred to as “street sense.”
4. Excitement:Excitement involves the search for thrills, flirting with danger, and taking risks, often through drinking, fighting, and sexual exploits. Situations which involve a lot of “drama,” such as gossip, or complicated interpersonal relationships can create excitement, and may also overlap with the idea of “trouble.” Think, for example, of the kinds of stereotypical cheating or paternity test situations that are represented on “trashy” daytime televisions talk-shows (e.g. Maury Povitch). These situations create drama and Miller argues that lower-class subculture revels in this kind of trouble and excitement.
5. Fate:This is the idea that one’s life is determined by forces over which one has no control. It is not a religious notion, but rather has to do with being lucky or unlucky. Miller argued that individuals in the lower-class resign themselves to fate and deny personal responsibility for the circumstances in which they find themselves.
6. Autonomy:Miller claims that members of the lower-class talk about resisting others’ control over their lives and express the desire for personal independence. They do not want to be controlled or to have others interfere with their actions, although Miller claims that the actual circumstances of lower-class people frequently contradict this value. He claims that “Many lower class people seem to seek out highly restrictive social environments wherein stringent external controls are maintained over their behaviour” (including the armed forces, mental hospitals and prisons) (1958:12).

Miller’s central thesis is that illegal behaviour is motivated by an attempt to achieve those ends, states, or conditions that are valued in the lower class community and to avoid those that are devalued. Sometimes legal means for achieving these goals are available, but it may be more expedient and easier to use illegal means. At other times, lower class culture demands a specific, expected, response to a particular situation and the response itself may be illegal. In other words, “following cultural practices which comprise essential elements of the total life-pattern of lower class culture automatically violates certain legal norms” (18). Unlike Cohen, Miller was primarily concerned with the content of lower-class culture and he took its development as a given – not that it necessarily need result from strain. Nevertheless, he did argue that certain social conditions prevalent in lower-class communities combine with lower-class focal concerns to produce a “generating milieu” for gang delinquency. In particular, he cites the high frequency of single-parent, female-headed households in lower class communities. In such families, adult males are either absent or only sporadically present, have little involvement in child rearing and young boys in the household therefore have no consistent male role models. Thus, for boys reared in female-headed households, peer groups provide the first real opportunity to learn essential aspects of the male role and gendered expectations of boys and men. Young boys are then learning their values and masculinity from older boys in delinquent gangs, perpetuating the values of lower-class subculture.

 

9.6 Marvin Wolfgang and Franco Ferracuti and the Subculture of Violence (1967)

Wolfgang & Ferracuti also utilised the concept of subculture. Their theory is different from the subculture theories we have discussed thus far in that it is an analysis of homicide and crimes of passion, not juvenile delinquency. The homicides or crimes of passion that Wolfgang and Ferracuti are interested in are not premeditated and are not caused by psychosis or mental disorder. They argue that these crimes of passion make up the majority of homicide cases and occur predominately among certain social groups and in certain neighbourhoods. They studied the homicide statistics and found that most are committed by young, non-white, lower-class men.

 

To explain the increased likelihood of violent crimes of passion among this group, Wolfgan and Ferracuti argued that the members of this group are socialized into a “subculture of violence” – a set of attitudes or social expectations that favour the use of violence in a variety of situations.

 

The values transmitted in a subculture of violence include:

1. Willingness to participate in violent activity
2. Expectations of violence
3. Willingness to retaliate violently against others

The more integrated an individual is into the subculture of violence, the more likely he is to resort to violence.

 

Wolfgang and Ferracuti contrast the subculture of violence with the more prevalent middle-class culture. Direct expressions of aggression are typically not acceptable in middle-class households and communities. For example, there is less use of corporal punishment by parents and children are taught to ignore insults or slights by others, rather than respond to with violence and aggression.

 

Wolfgang and Ferracuti argue that while middle-class people are not immune to the lure of violence, they engage and express violence vicariously through films and fantasies (violent video games would be a new, contemporary outlet that wasn’t available when they were writing in 1967). They claim that the high value placed on human life by middle class values inhibits the expression of overt violence. By contrast, Wolfgang and Ferracuti claim that lower-class culture places less value on life; physical punishment is routine, physical combat or fighting is used as a measure of courage, “toughness,” and defence of status – particularly for men and boys. In this sense, overt expression of violence among the lower classes is rewarded with status and respect, and individuals who shy away from physical confrontation are ridiculed. This subculture of violence is passed on from generation to generation (via cultural transmission) and members of the lower class reinforce the subculture through everyday interaction.

STOP AND THINK: Do you agree that middle-class families and communities discourage the direct expression of violence while condoning (or even encouraging) the vicarious experience of violence via media? How do middle class boys demonstrate “toughness” and masculinity? Are middle class boys significantly different from lower-class boys?

Wolfgang and Ferracuti admit that they do not know how the subculture of violence develops in the first place. The best they can do is to suggest that “the beginning could be a Cohen-like negative reaction that is turned into regularized, institutionalized patterns of prescription.”

 

9.7 Analysis and Critiques of Subculture Theories

Subculture theories offer an opportunity to look at the world through the eyes of marginal groups. However, there are many critiques of these kinds of theories that reflect on the kinds of biases that are introduced by middle and upper-class criminologists attempting to study lower-class groups.

 

First, is there actually a distinct lower-class culture? Most studies indicate that gang members in lower-class neighbourhoods know and accept the norms of the dominant culture. It is not clear that gaining status in a lower-class neighbourhood or subculture erases the desire for success and status in the broader social context. Many members of lower-class subcultures and even gang members continue to believe in the American Dream and continue to seek material success.

 

The idea that gang activity is non-utilitarian is firmly rooted in middle-class values and the biases of the criminologist who is looking at the behaviour; activities that may appear non-utilitarian may actually be purposeful and directive from the perspective of the people who engage in them. Researchers would need to interview gang members about their activities to better understand the motivations and the meanings that they attach to these behaviours.

 

Tracing the emergence and perpetuation of a subculture of violence to parenting and the use of corporal punishment is problematic in that it makes significant assumptions about the class of people who use corporal punishment. Not all lower-class people share a consistent parenting style, and not all middle-class people avoid corporal punishment or spanking, so inconsistencies in parenting styles introduce questions about the kinds of assumptions that are being made by criminologists studying lower-class groups.

 

There is also a clear male bias to subculture theories in the sense that the criminologists who pioneered these theories only studied boys and men; there is no discussion of how women and girls fit into lower-class subculture and little understanding of how the pressures of class status affect girls and women.

 

Subculture theories, as sociological positivist theories, assume that there is something distinct about people who live a “lower-class” lifestyle and that these distinct characteristics lead to “deviant” or criminal behaviour. Policies would suggest that we should focus on ameliorating lower-class culture, reducing strain, and providing increased opportunities for people to be successful by middle-class standards in order to reduce status frustration. The next theory that we are going to learn about turns these assumptions on their head. Control theorists believe that all individuals have motivation to commit crime and to engage in deviant behaviours but that distinct experiences and values motivate us to follow the rules and conform!

 

9.8 Conclusion

Subcultural perspectives emphasize the value differences between so called “mainstream” middle-class culture and other lower class or deviant groups. While we may question whether subcultures are truly unique and different from dominant culture, a key contribution of these theories is to point out the important role of socialization and the internalization of expected behaviours in shaping how individuals act. In the next lesson we will consider a theory that turns the question of socialization on its head to ask not, “why do people commit crime?,” but “why do people conform?”