Download Social Structure I

Social Structure I
Durkheim
The “Chicago School”
Social Disorganization
Emile Durkheim (late 1858-1917)
• French Scientist
• Suicide
• Humans nature: selfish and insatiable
– Effective Societies able to “cap” desires
• Socialization & Social Ties
– Special concern with “Industrial Prosperity”
• Coined the Term “Anomie”:
– Institutionalized norms lose ability to control
human behavior and human needs
Durkhiem’s Legacy
Rapidly Changing
Society
“Industrial Prosperity”
Anomie
(Norms are Weakened)
The Anomie/Strain Tradition
(Thursday)
Human Nature as
Insatiable; must
therefore cap or control
Social Ties Important
The Social Disorganization
and “Informal Control”
Tradition (Today)
Meanwhile, back in America
• “Social Pathologists” (1900-1930)
– Cities as “bad” and “corrupting”
– Immigrants as amoral and inferior
• Chicago School (1930s)
– University of Chicago (Sociologists)
– Tie to Durkheim: City/Societal Growth
• Worry over lack of integration (and control)
Park & Burgess (1925)
How does a city growth and develop?
• Concentric Zones in Chicago
Industrial zone
Zone in transition
Residential zones
Shaw and McKay
• Juvenile Delinquency in Urban Areas 1942.
– Mapped addresses of delinquents (court
records)
– Zone in transition stable and high delinquency
rates over many years
– Implications of these findings:
1. Stable, despite multiple waves of immigrants!!
2. Only certain areas of the city Something about
this area causes delinquency
Social Disorganization
• What were the characteristics of the zone in
transition that may cause high delinquency
rates?
–
–
–
–
Population Heterogeneity
Population Turnover
Physical Decay
Poverty/Inequality
• Why might these ecological characteristics lead
to high crime rates?
Explaining high crime in the
zone of transition
1. Social Control
• Little community “cohesion,” therefore, weak
community institutions and lack of control
2. Cultural Transmission of Values
• Once crime rooted in a neighborhood, delinquent
values are passed trough generations of
delinquents
Social Disorganization 1960-1980
• Fell out of favor in sociology in 1950s
– Individual theories gained popularity
• Criticisms of Social Disorganization
– “Official Data”
– Are these neighborhoods really “disorganized?”
– Cannot measure “intervening variables”
– “Chicago Specific” (not all cities grow in rings)
Modern S.D. Theory
• Interest rekindled in the 1980s
– Continues today with “ecological studies”
– reborn as a pure social control theory (left behind
“transmission of values)
• Addressing criticism
– “Concentric rings” not necessary, it is simply
a neighborhood level theory
– Ecological characteristics do affect a
neighborhoods level of informal control
Sampson and Groves (1989)
Using British Crime Survey Data (BCS)
ECOLOGICAL
CHARACTERISTICS
•Population turnover
•Poverty / inequality
•Divorce rates
•Single parents
SOCIAL CONTROL
•Street supervision
•Friendship networks
•Participation in
organizations
Sampson (1997)
• Replicated results in Chicago
– Areas with “concentrated disadvantage,”
(poverty, race, age composition, family
disruption) lack “collective efficacy”
• Willingness to exercise control (tell kids to quiet
down)
• Willingness to trust or help each other
– Lack of collective efficacy increases crime
rates
Review of Social
Disorganization
• Macro (Neighborhood) level theory
– Explains why certain neighborhoods have
high crime rates
Ecological
Social
Crime
Characteristics
Control
Rates
• NOT an individual level theory
• Avoid “Ecological Fallacy”
Policy Implications?
• Build neighborhood “collective efficacy”
– How do you do this?
• Address ecological characteristics that ruin
collective efficacy
– Family disruption, concentrated poverty,
residential mobility
Other “ecological” ideas
• William J. Wilson (Concentrated Poverty)
– The “Underclass” or “Truly Disadvantaged”
– Crime out of economic need, frustration…
– Cultural Isolation no contact with
“mainstream” individuals/institutions
• Little respect for “life,” hypermaterialism…
• Robert Bursik
– Political capital; inadequate access to public
services