Merton's Strain Theory

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  • Created by: 11JoneA1
  • Created on: 17-01-18 10:30

Strain and Deviance

Deviance is caused by strain between....

  • Goals encouraged by culture/society
    • Job, money, house, family, holiday
  • Legitimate means
    • What the institutional structure of society allows them to achieve legitimately 
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The American Dream

American Dream: values money success and material wealth, legitimate means (hard work, self discipline, qualifications)

Disadvantaged Groups: denied legitimate opportunities due to poverty, discrimination, inadequate schooling 

Strain between cultural goal of money success and lack of legitimate means 

Strain to Anomie: strain between goals and lack of means = illegitimate means 

Explanation of crime patterns: most crime is property crime by lower classes - they have less opportunity to achieve means legally/legitimately 

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Adaptations to Strain

  • Conformity: achieve goals legitimately 
    • Middle class
    • Accepts goals and legitimate means 
  • Innovation: accept goals but use new illegitimate means 
    • Working class
    • E.g. theft and fraud 
  • Ritualism: give up on goal but internalise legitimate means 
    • Middle class
    • Dead end jobs
  • Retreatism: reject goals and means
    • Become dropouts
    • Drug addicts
  • Rebellion: reject goals but create new ones
    • Revolutionary change
    • Radicals/hippies 
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Criticisms

  • Takes crime statistics at face value
    • Working class over represented
  • Too deterministic
    • Working class experience strain but not all commit crime
  • Marxists - ignores power of r/c to make and enforce laws criminalising w/c
  • Assumes everyone's goal is money success
  • Only considers economic crime
    • Not violence or state crime
  • Ignores group deviance
    • Delinquent subcultures
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