(Photo courtesy of Apollo 1758/Wikimedia Commons) Proponents of social disorganization theory believe that individuals who grow up in impoverished areas are more likely to participate in deviant or criminal behaviors. An individual who grows up in a poor neighborhood with high rates of drug use, violence, teenage delinquency, and deprived parenting is more likely to become a criminal than an individual from a wealthy neighborhood with a good school system and families who are involved positively in the community. Terrorists or freedom fighters look to overthrow a society’s goals through socially unacceptable means.ĭeveloped by researchers at the University of Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s, social disorganization theory asserts that crime is most likely to occur in communities with weak social ties and the absence of social control. Rebellion: A handful of people rebel and replace a society’s goals and means with their own.Some beggars and street people have withdrawn from society’s goal of financial success. Retreatism: Others retreat and reject society’s goals and means.These members of society focus on conformity rather than attaining a distant dream. Ritualism: People who ritualize lower their goals until they can reach them through socially acceptable ways.Innovation: Those who innovate pursue goals they cannot reach through legitimate means by instead using criminal or deviant means.
They pursue their goals to the extent that they can through socially accepted means. Conformity: Those who conform choose not to deviate.Merton defined five ways people respond to this gap between having a socially accepted goal and having no socially accepted way to pursue it. According to Merton’s theory, an entrepreneur who can’t afford to launch his own company may be tempted to embezzle from his employer for start-up funds. A person may have the socially acceptable goal of financial success but lack a socially acceptable way to reach that goal. However, not everyone in our society stands on equal footing. A woman who attends business school, receives her MBA, and goes on to make a million-dollar income as CEO of a company is said to be a success. From birth, we’re encouraged to achieve the “American Dream” of financial success. Sociologist Robert Merton agreed that deviance is an inherent part of a functioning society, but he expanded on Durkheim’s ideas by developing strain theory, which notes that access to socially acceptable goals plays a part in determining whether a person conforms or deviates.
Seeing a student given detention for skipping class reminds other high schoolers that playing hooky isn’t allowed and that they, too, could get detention. Moreover, Durkheim noted, when deviance is punished, it reaffirms currently held social norms, which also contributes to society (1893). For instance, when black students across the United States participated in sit-ins during the civil rights movement, they challenged society’s notions of segregation. One way deviance is functional, he argued, is that it challenges people’s present views (1893). Émile Durkheim believed that deviance is a necessary part of a successful society. Émile Durkheim: The Essential Nature of Deviance Strain theory, social disorganization theory, and cultural deviance theory represent three functionalist perspectives on deviance in society. They view deviance as a key component of a functioning society. Sociologists who follow the functionalist approach are concerned with the way the different elements of a society contribute to the whole. These theories can be grouped according to the three major sociological paradigms: functionalism, symbolic interactionism, and conflict theory. Why does deviance occur? How does it affect a society? Since the early days of sociology, scholars have developed theories that attempt to explain what deviance and crime mean to society. (Photo courtesy of David Shankbone/flickr) Protesters, such as these PETA members, often use this method to draw attention to their cause. Functionalists believe that deviance plays an important role in society and can be used to challenge people’s views.