Albert Cohen: Status Frustration

1. Alternative status heirarchy: - Boys join these delinquent subcultures, and these ‘invert’ mainstream values. - These subcultures allow boys to achieve illegitimately through crime and deviance.

2. Strengths of Cohen: - This offers an explanation of non-utilitarian crime among W/c - A number of British studies support Cohen- e.g James Patrick ‘A Glasgow Gang’ found members wanting ways to gain status.

3. Weaknesses of Cohen: -No discussion of females- feminists call it malestream. -He over emphasises the influence of education compared to other socialising agencies. - wrongly assumes that all W/c boys begin sharing the same m/c goals- some never have thes e goals and don’t see themselves as failures.

4. Cohen built on Merton ideas and combined structural and sub cultural theories of crime. He also agrees that deviance happens more among the w/c. However, he criticises Merton in two ways: - Merton ignores group deviance. - Merton ignores non-utilitarian crime. E.g vandalism.

5. -Cohen mainly focused on deviance among W/c boys- arguing they face anomie in a m/c dominated school system. -They suffer from cultural deprivation and their inability to succeed leaves them at the bottom of the official status hierarchy. -As a result of not being able to gain stays legitimately they suffer from status frustration, therefore they turn to deviance to gain status e.g subcultures.