Albert Cohen

3 Key excerpts on "Albert Cohen"

• 

  eBook - PDF

  Crime, Deviance and Society

  An Introduction to Sociological Criminology

  • Ana Rodas, Melanie Simpson, Paddy Rawlinson, Ronald Kramer, Emma Ryan, Emmeline Taylor, Reece Walters, Alan Beckley, Chris Cunneen, Ashlee Gore, Amanda Porter, Scott Poynting, Emma Russell(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Having outlined the foundations of the two strands of subcultural theory, we now consider each approach and some of its key thinkers in turn. Chapter 5 Deviant and criminal subcultures 109 AMERICAN SUBCULTURAL THEORIES: KEY CONCEPTS AND CONTRIBUTION Albert Cohen (1955) : The effects of the ‘middle-class measuring rod’ Albert Cohen was the first of the American subcultural theorists to be closely connected to Robert Merton’s version of anomie theory, best known as ‘structural strain theory’ (see Chapter 4). In his book Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang (1955), Cohen argued that subcultures emerged as a response to collective strain. He argued that working- class boys were particularly subject to strain not as individuals but as a group. Strain was caused by the effects of what he termed the ‘middle-class measuring rod’. In American cultures, school was central to achieving ‘success’, yet working-class children lacked the social and cultural capital to succeed at school. They often underperformed in school and then experienced ‘status frustration’ – according to Cohen’s theory, a complex about their value and position within the social order of the school setting. This status frustration became the ‘strain’, which then led to ‘reaction formation’ – the collective solution to the ‘frustration’ or ‘strain’. The reaction formation took shape in the form of new social groupings that began to introduce new group goals, attainable to the young men in the group. In order to introduce new goals, processes of dismissal or devaluing of mainstream value had to take place. In Cohen’s theory this meant the rejection of middle-class values, including academic achievement via the school setting. Cohen argued that three types of collective responses emerged: 1. College boys – these are groupings of young men who are conformists and work hard to ‘succeed’ within the school setting.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Theories of Crime

  • Ian Marsh(Author)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Having said that, Merton’s theory does have certain strengths. It explains crime in terms of the structure and culture of society, rather than individual characteristics. As such it is a structural theory of crime which laid the basis for later theorizing based on the notion of subcultures—the idea that certain groups are more predisposed to break the rules of society than others. Such approaches are introduced below.

  Albert Cohen AND SUBCULTURAL THEORIES

  In his widely cited study Delinquent Boys, published in 1955, Albert Cohen provides a different version of strain theory. The influence of Merton is apparent through his focusing on features of contemporary American society that create strains for individuals which eventually lead to delinquent behaviour—in particular the importance of the values which form the ‘American way of life’. However, Cohen questions whether criminal and delinquent behaviour is caused by a desire for material goals. Like Merton, he focuses on the working-class delinquency but argues that a large amount of such behaviour is expressive in character and not centred on acquiring money or goods. Delinquency centred on vandalism or violence is a clear example of such behaviour that is not concerned with material gain.

  Cohen’s argument is that American society is dominated by middle-class values and norms which are passed on through the education system and mass media. He looks to the education system in particular for his explanation of delinquency. Schools emphasize and embody middle-class values and so working-class boys (he focused on males) are ill-equipped to compete with middle-class boys, or ‘college boys’, and to gain status through education. Such working-class boys, or ‘corner boys’ as Cohen called them, suffer status frustration at school and respond by attempting to turn the middle-class value system on its head. Anything the school disapproves of the corner boy will see as good, with delinquency seen as a direct denial of middle-class values. Working-class, corner boys reject the values of the school and form groups which emphasize different, essentially delinquent, values—they form what Cohen defined as a delinquent subculture.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Criminology in Brief

  Understanding Crime and Criminal Justice

  • Robert Heiner(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 4 .)

  Albert Cohen

  Albert Cohen was one among several prominent sociologists in the 1950s and early 1960s who focused their attention on the formation and activities of lower class male gang delinquents. Cohen characterized the behavior of these gangs as being non-utilitarian, malicious, and negativistic. By non-utilitarian, he meant that their delinquent activities do not seem oriented toward a purpose. When delinquents steal, for example, they usually are not stealing anything that will be of use to them; instead, they seem to steal at random, take things they do not need, and often destroy those things. By malicious, he meant that they seem to take pride in being “just plain mean.” And by negativistic, Cohen meant that these juvenile gangs seem to take the dominant middle class norms, turn them upside down, and do the opposite of what is expected of them. Cohen writes,

  The same spirit is evident in playing hooky and in misbehavior in school. The teacher and her rules are not merely something onerous to be evaded. They are to be flouted. There is an element of active spite and malice, contempt and ridicule, challenge and defiance, exquisitely symbolized, in an incident described by writer Henry D. McKay, of defecating on the teacher’s desk. … The delinquent’s conduct is right by the standards of his subculture, precisely because it is wrong by the norms of the larger culture. “Malicious” and “negativistic” are foreign to the delinquent’s vocabulary but he will often assure us, sometimes ruefully, sometimes with a touch of glee or even pride, the he is “just plain mean.”21

  Much of Cohen’s theory goes on to explain why the lower class male gang delinquent behaves as he described above.

  According to Cohen, everybody seeks status. That is, we all want recognition; we all want to be held in the esteem of others because our self-esteem depends upon the esteem of others. Sociologists distinguish between ascribed status and achieved status. Ascribed status is essentially status that we are born with, whereas achieved status is status that we earn, that is the result of our actions. Kids born into lower class families are born with little or no ascribed status, so any chance they have of finding the esteem of others will have to be derived from achievement. The environment in which most kids achieve legitimate status is in the school system. Unfortunately, these kids are forced to compete for status against middle class kids in a middle class school system, with middle class administrators and middle class teachers who have middle class values and middle class prejudices. In other words, these juveniles are born with little or no status and the deck is stacked against them when it comes to achieving status.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book