Subcultural Theories

Question 1

Status frustration

Answer 1

Cohen

Question 2

What is status frustration?

Answer 2

Focusing primarily on working class boys, it posits that those boys who fail in middle class orientated education, seek status in other ways, in one another.
They try to rise in the ranks of their own friend group hierarchy, developing counterculture values.

Criminality is one expression of this.

Question 3

What’s the problem/positive with status frustration

Answer 3

Problem: it assumes there’s little individual choice, and that those people will always remain that way. It also ignores how this same working out might lead to non deviant/criminal activities, such as football.

Positive: this tracks with the rise of school truancy in recent years, with recent figures saying 1/10 students in the U.K were ‘consistently absent’.

Question 4

Neutralisation techniques

Answer 4

Matza

Question 5

What are the _ neutralisation techniques

Answer 5

• Denial there is a victim
• Denial of injury, saying they are the victim
• Denial of responsibility, blaming others
• Condemning the condemners
• Saying they did it for a greater good

Question 6

What are some positive/problems with neutralisation

Question 7

Lower class subculture

Answer 7

Miller

Question 8

What is lower class subculture theory?

Answer 8

The theory that this subculture is separate from the mainstream value consensus of chasing success.
Failure does not frustrate them because its about achieving their own independent goals not the goals the dominant ideology promotes as valuable

Question 9

What are some problems/positives with lower class subcultural theory?

Answer 9

• This is supported by Willis’ study of working class boys, who showed an awareness of how the system had disadvantaged them, but chose to pursue their own goals anyway, to reject school, valuing ‘Street smarts’ and practical skills.
• Could be slightly patronising, a lot of working class people appreciate the value in going down the institutional route to personal success and promote things like education.

This notion of this being how the working class are, reinforces very real classism that exists in particular, in UK society.
Newspapers are known to propagate this hostility, for instance Boris Johnson writing for the independent said working class men were likely to be “aimless and feckless” amongst other things.

Question 10

Illegitimate opportunity structures

Answer 10

Cloward and Ohlin

Question 11

What is the theory of illegitimate opportunity structures?

Answer 11

Different neighbourhoods produce different outcomes for young people, deciding whether they learn legitimate or illegitimate career paths.
There are 3 types

• Criminal: Benefitting the criminal
• Conflict: Where there’s a lack of shared norms and cohesion, young people gain status through violence.
• Retreatist: Substance abuse and idleness, coming from the inability to find the success they want.

Question 12

What are the focal concerns of the lower class subcultural theory? The things to pursue.

Answer 12

• Excitement and thrill
• To be and be seen as tough
• Smartness such as smart remarks and or practical skills, use to assert intellectual superiority.
• Trouble: The status granted from being seen to operate outside the system.
• Fate: The future is predetermined, or “what will be, will be”