Logged out
Access All our Essays in an Instant
Swap your work for FREE access, or pay £4.99 for instant access
Critically examine the different ways in which sociologist have used the concept subculture to explain deviance.
Member rating: No Rating | Words: | Submitted: Wed Jan 07 2004
Page Preview
On the left is an image preview of every page of this document, and below are the first 150 words with formatting removed:
Critically examine the different ways in which sociologist have used the concept subculture to explain deviance (40marks) Subcultural theories of crime and deviance explain deviance in terms of the subculture of a social group. The theories argue that particular groups develop and maintain norms and values that differ from those held by the majority of modern day western society. This approach does not ignore the importance of social structure but sees it as a background to beliefs about the world. It heavily influences by the social action theory. There are a number of subcultral theories of deviance which attempt to explain forms of collective, non-utilitarian deviance in terms of the formation of subcultures. Robert Merton argues that deviance results not only from 'pathological personalities' but also from the culture and structure of society itself. Merton begins his argument from the standard functionalist position of value consensus, that all members of society share the...
Get instant access
- Instant, unlimited access to our documents in full
- Swap your work for free access, or pay £4.99
- To see the full version of this document and 147,187 others
Receive email updates for this category
- Simply tell us your email address and receive a weekly Study Help Email for FREE
- Receive 3 FREE essay views with each email
- Get all the latest essays from Coursework.Info & discussion from TheStudentRoom.co.uk
