Looks at Merton, Labelling Theory and Moral Panics

1. SOCIOLOG Y OF
Y OUTH STUDIES

2. • 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

4. • 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

5. • 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

6. CASE STUDY: COLUMBINE

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

8. 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) …

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

10. 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

11. 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

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

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

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

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

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