Structural Strain Theories

     Robert Merton:  

• Reconceptualizes Durkheim's concept of Anomie.
• Not an overall, or even localized breakdown in normative structure.
• The cultural system and social structure of society is basically intact, workable, functional.
• In fact, to a certain extent, Deviance represents the functionality of the system.
• Merton's "Dream Machine."
• Problem is:

A disjuncture within the cultural system between the Goals (values) which define our lives and the culturally determined, institutionalized, legitimate Means for achieving them.

"Our primary aim is to discover how some
social structures exert a definite pressure
upon certain persons in the society to engage in
nonconformist rather than conformist conduct.

. . . high rates of deviant behavior in these groups
[occur] not because the human beings comprising them are
compounded of distinctive biological tendencies but because they
are responding normally to to the social situation in which they find
themselves."

Robert K. Merton,  "Social Structure and Anomie." American Sociological Review 3 (Oct. 1938):
672-82. Reprinted in On Social Structure and Science, essays by Robert K. Merton, edited by
Piotr Sztompka. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

• Legitimate means de-emphasized.
• Certain groups blocked from accessing them.

Occurs between individual's aspirations and expectations==> Not individual problem, but structural reality.

Adaption to strain

• Can be deviance (norm violation).
• Once deviance becomes an alternative it can spread, and become a relatively permanent part of a social system.

Adaptive Typology:

• Conformity central: most keep trying.
• All but rebel are essentially "non-threatening" to the system.
• But existence of deviance does suggest Reform, or repair is needed. (Social Policies of the 1960's).

Modifications to Structural Strain Theory

Albert Cohen (1965):

Merton's Theory--

• Too Utilitarian- not all deviance is in pursuit of wealth
• Too Atomistic- not simple individual adaption to strain.
• Too Mechanistic- no room for understanding the role of individual/group processes, role of subcultures.

Problem==>

• Status: recognition and respect from significant others
• Position: An accepted place in society.
• This leads to:

Status Frustration.

Children of the lower classes are judged by a "Middle Class Measuring Rod."

• Families are problematic.
• Children are failures at school
• They experience problems with Authorities (police, employers, etc.)
• Bad home, school failure==> Problem Kid==> Status Frustration.

Failure to achieve status and recognition leads to "dropping out," but:

• One finds oneself in the company of others who share similar concerns and problems.
• A Collective "reaction formation" emerges (or is already available)==> The Gang.

• Further information

• Even access to illegitimate opportunities in differentially structured.
• Deviant response explained by Differential Opportunity Structures, both legitimate and illegitimate.
• Neighborhood and subcultural focus: What is available for the individual experiencing strain?
• Subcultures-- collective social adjustments to the strains of blocked opportunity. People learn to adjust within the group context.

1. Criminal Gang: integrate age levels, training, skills-- pursuit of profit. Organized, rational, and structured.
2. Conflict Gang: less integration, distance from legitimate goals, less instrumentality >focus on venting pent up frustration, unskilled and disorganized activity.
3. Retreatist Gang: Double Failures.

Control: Mobilization for Youth (and many other similar programs in the 1960s)--little impact: too radical, and not radical enough

• Further information

Problems with Strain Theories:

• Question of lower class aspirations and expectations as strained (Hirschi--low aspirations of the lower class
• Question of deviant motivation--intention.
• Question of specialization within deviant subcultures.
• Question of drug users being "double failures."
• Strain Theories accept simple normative definition of deviance.
• They rely on official statistics as depicting the reality of deviance.
• Essentially a lower class focus, what about Middle Class deviance?
• Somewhat radical, but radical enough?

Current Work:

• Structural Factors: similar to Merton
• Individual Factors: biological and psychological
• Interpersonal Factors: group structures and dissatisfaction
• Unlimited and Unobtainable Goals
• Further information

 

The Blau's: Relative Deprivation

• Inequality perceived to be due to race or class
• Sense of social injustice
• Distrust of Society
• Not poverty itself, but proximity of wealth and poverty

Crime and the American Dream, Steven Messner and Richard Rosenfeld (1994)

• A recent "radicalization" of Merton's key ideas.
• A focus on contradictions in both the cultural system, as well as the opportunity structures of modern society.
• "Re-inventing Culture."
• Further information

Economic Crime

White Collar Crime

Violence

Subcultural Theories

URL: http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/200/strain.html
Owner: Robert O. Keel rok@umsl.edu
References and Credits for this Page of Notes
Last Updated: Monday, September 22, 2008 4:43 PM