SOC IOLOGY OF YOUTH STUDIES

• Took notion of anomie further by looking at strain

• Society defines success (goals and means)

• Resource & Opportunities differ• If strain:

– Conformity +/+– Innovation +/-– Ritualism -/+– Retreatism -/-– Rebellion -+/-+

Strain - Merton

• Started with Durkheim – the person is labelled deviant but really they ‘differ’ to the norms established

• Developed further by Mead who argued that we develop our identity through interactions with others – if we are called a criminal we see ourselves as a criminal

• The Outsiders – Becker look at ‘dope smokers’. Becker argued that society applies rules onto people and defines deviant behaviour.

• The labelling of people leads to the deviant using the labelling as a reason for their behaviour

• Stereotyping and the self-fulfiling prophecy

Labelling - Becker

• Media, labelling and the reaction to deviance

• Mods and the Rockers• Milk Bar Cowboys• Popular reaction to a challenge to

the social order• Five stages (Goode & Ben

Yehuda)– Concern– Hostility– Disproportionality– Volatility

Moral Panic – Stanley Cohen

CASE STUDY: COLUMBINE

http://www.cagle.com/news/SchoolShooting2005/main.asp

ERIC HARRIS & DYLAN KLEBOLD• White middle-class ‘normal’ kids• Both held racist views about blacks• Both had interests in the occult• Both had diaries• Both had negative experiences in the classroom• Both belonged to a group (The Trench Coat Mafia) …

http://www.cagle.com/news/SchoolShooting2005/main.asp

THE SHOOTINGS• Planned for the 19th of April• Happened on the 20th April• 12 students and one teacher were

killed• Brought immediate responses from the

media and the President

THE MEDIA REACTION• Shootings were extensively covered for months after

the event– Denver Post had 750 articles on the shootings in the six

months following the incident– Denver Post won a Pulitzer Prize

• The media reaction has been analysed in academic articles, web-forums, and movies

– Bowling for Columbine

http://www.cagle.com/news/SchoolShooting2005/main.asp

http://www.cagle.com/news/SchoolShooting2005/main.asp

http://www.cagle.com/news/SchoolShooting2005/main.asp

http://www.cagle.com/news/SchoolShooting2005/main.asp

http://www.cagle.com/news/SchoolShooting2005/main.asp