Deck 6: Social Structure Theory

Question 1

The "truly disheartened" is the term used by William Julius Wilson to describe socially isolated people who dwell in urban inner-cities, who occupy the bottom rung of the social ladder, and who are the victims of discrimination.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

Children who grow up in low-income homes are less likely to achieve in school and less likely to complete school than children who do not grow up in low-income households.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Because crime rates are higher in lower-class areas, many criminologists believe that the causes of crime are rooted in socioeconomic factors.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Some social structure theorists argue that destructive forces in poverty-stricken areas are responsible for high crime rates.

Question 5

The social disorganization concepts articulated by Shaw and McKay enjoyed short-term prominence due to the growing homogeneity of American society over time.

Question 6

People who live in neighborhoods that experience high levels of crime and civil disorder become suspicious and mistrusting.

Question 7

Fear is often based on experience: people living in areas with especially high crimes rates are the ones most likely to experience fear.

Question 8

According to the author, the most important wielder of informal social control is religion.

Question 9

Political ideologies, such as affirmative action, have erased the economic disparities between whites and minorities

Question 10

Social structure theories suggest that social and economic forces operating in deteriorated lower-class areas push many area residents into criminal behavior patterns.

Question 11

People in the United States live in a stratified society in which social strata are created by the unequal distribution of wealth, power, and prestige.

Question 12

A promising trend in the last 10 years is the closing gap of unemployment rates among races; African Americans and non-Hispanic Whites both have unemployment rates around 14 percent nationally.

Question 13

Shaw and McKay's statistical analysis confirmed that even though crime rates changed, the highest rates were always in Zones I and Zone II.

Question 14

In recent years, the number of homeless children in the United States has declined to an all-time low of 1 in every 50 children.

Question 15

Strain is limited in affluent areas because educational and vocational opportunities are available.

Question 16

General strain theory is not purely a structural theory because it focuses on how life events influence behavior.

Question 17

Merton's view of anomie has been one of the most enduring and influential theories of criminality.

Question 18

Collective efficacy refers to the social control exerted by cohesive communities that is based on mutual trust.

Question 19

According to Strain theory, because lower-class people fail to achieve success through conventional means, they often feel the need to find alternative means of achieving their life goals, which may include criminality.

Question 20

Social Ecology School refers to an interdisciplinary approach ​to studying interdependent social and environmental problems that cause crime.

Question 21

According to social structure theory, the root cause of crime can be directly traced to ______.

A) individual socialization
B) socioeconomic disadvantages that have become embedded in American society
C) lower-class mistrust of social control institutions
D) the lack of political power within the underclass

Question 22

Reaction formation is used to explain irrational hostility by young delinquents who adopt norms directly opposed by the middle class.

Question 23

The lowest social stratum in any country, whose members lack the education and skills needed to function successfully in modern society.

A) Underclass
B) Bourgeois
C) Proletariat
D) Lower class

Question 24

Social strata are created by the unequal distribution of wealth. While the upper class is exceptionally well-to-do, ______ people live in poverty in America.

A) 1,000,000
B) 15,000,000
C) 46,000,000
D) 64,500,000

Question 25

Cultural deviance theory combines elements of _____ and social disorganization theories.

A) strain
B) poverty
C) socialization
D) transmission

Question 26

Strain theory holds that crime is a function of ______.

A) unequal distribution of wealth
B) loss of informal institutions of social control
C) conflict between people's goals and means
D) available methods of achievement

Question 27

Messner and Rosenfeld's institutional anomie theory argues that the goal of success at all costs has invaded every aspect of American life.

Question 28

Negative affective states refer to the bottom 10 percent of U.S. states where crime is so high that the American Dream has no chance of success for middle- and lower-class individuals.

Question 29

Which theory focuses on the urban conditions, such as high unemployment and school dropout rates, to explain crime?

A) Strain theory
B) Social disorganization theory
C) Cultural deviance theory
D) General strain theory

Question 30

Examples of Walter Miller's lower-class focal concerns include achievement, status, and delayed gratification.

Question 31

Delinquent subculture theory was first articulated by Emile Durkheim in 1936 to explain displaced juveniles following the Great Depression.

Question 32

Middle-class measuring rods refer to the standards by which authority figures, such as teachers, evaluate lower-class youngsters and often prejudge them negatively.

Question 33

________ are segments of the population whose members have a relatively similar portion of desirable belongings, and who share attitudes, values, and norms.

A) Social groups
B) Social classes
C) Social subcultures
D) Social cultures

Question 34

People grouped according to economic or social class; characterized by the unequal distribution of wealth, power, and prestige are referred to as a ______.

A) culture of poverty
B) systemic society
C) stratified society
D) oppressed state

Question 35

The view that disadvantaged economic class position is a primary cause of crime is known as ______ theory.

A) ​social structure
B) ​social class
C) ​social bond
D) ​culture of poverty

Question 36

Agnew's focus on negative affective states offers a more general explanation of criminality among all elements of society rather than being restrictive to lower-class crime.

Question 37

Some of the programs developed during the Chicago School era, such as Cloward and Ohlin's views of differential opportunity, were a critical part of the Kennedy and Johnson administration's War on Poverty.

Question 38

Oscar Lewis argues that the crushing lifestyle of lower-class areas produces ________ that is passed on from one generation to the next.

A) a culture of poverty
B) physical deterioration
C) social deterioration
D) family disorganization

Question 39

Differential opportunity theory is credited to Cloward and Ohlin and is a combination of strain and social disorganization principals relating to gang sustaining criminal subcultures.

Question 40

Cultural deviance theory combines elements of relative deprivation and differential opportunity theories.

Question 41

An interdisciplinary approach to the study of interdependent social and environmental problems that cause crime.

A) Social ecology school
B) ​Social construct school
C) ​Social stigma school
D) Social conservative school

Question 42

Social ecology school criminologists associate crime rates and the need for police services to ______.

A) community deterioration
B) community fear
C) community change
D) poverty concentration

Question 43

Why are personal relationships, including establishing communication and common goals, strained in socially disorganized neighborhoods?

A) Because the hostility of long-term residents makes it difficult for new people to move into the neighborhood
B) Because residents are constantly moving in and out of the neighborhood
C) Because police refuse to organize neighborhood groups
D) Because gang formation disrupts families in the neighborhood

Question 44

When members of the lower class are unable to achieve symbols of success via conventional means they feel anger, frustration, and resentment. These feelings are collectively referred to as ______.

A) focal concerns
B) aggression
C) siege mentality
D) strain

Question 45

According to the major premise of this theory, crime occurs when the wealthy and the poor live close to one another.

A) Anomie theory
B) ​General strain theory
C) Institutional anomie theory
D) Relative deprivation theory

Question 46

What two elements of culture interact to produce anomie and/or anomic conditions?

A) Informal social control and public social control
B) Middle-class measuring rods and educational underachievement
C) Culturally defined goals and socially approved means for obtaining them
D) Community cohesiveness and collective efficacy

Question 47

Cohesive communities with high levels of social control and social integration and where people develop interpersonal ties are also likely to develop ______.

A) high levels of incivility
B) collective efficacy
C) mistrust of public social control
D) siege mentality

Question 48

Social disorganization theory was popularized by the work of two Chicago sociologists ______.

A) Robert Agnew and Albert Cohen
B) Robert Merton and Emile Durkheim
C) Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay
D) Paul Klenowski and Keith Bell

Question 49

Shaw and McKay explained crime and delinquency within the context of ______.

A) the changing urban environment and ecological development of the city
B) subcultures with blocked means of achieving majority status
C) redistribution of goals and means
D) biological changes resulting from transient neighborhoods

Question 50

According to Shaw and McKay, a __________ neighborhood is an area wracked by extreme poverty and suffering high rates of population turnover.

A) subcultural
B) transitional
C) concentric
D) ecological

Question 51

The major premise of this theory is that material goods pervade all aspects of American life.

A) Institutional anomie theory
B) General strain theory
C) Relative deprivation theory
D) Conflict theory

Question 52

According to the author, the most important of Shaw and McKay's findings was that ______.

A) crime rates increase as police services increase
B) overtime crime rates shift outward from Zones I & II to the suburban zones
C) crime rates correspond to neighborhood structure
D) the number of abandoned buildings decreases as emigration increases

Question 53

As working and middle-class families flee inner-city poverty areas, the most disadvantaged population is consolidated in urban ghettos. This phenomenon results in a poverty ______ effect.

A) solidity
B) concentration
C) cohort
D) instability

Question 54

According to institutional anomie theorists, the _________ is both a goal and process to accumulate goods and wealth.

A) American Dream
B) American Hope
C) American Ideal
D) American Myth

Question 55

Agnew suggests that criminality is the direct result of __________-the anger, frustration, and adverse emotions associated with destructive social relationships.

A) siege mentality
B) negative affective states
C) relative deprivation
D) focal concerns

Question 56

The presence of strain is said to lock people into an independent ___________ with unique values and beliefs.

A) ​subculture
B) ​division
C) ​reality
D) ​schism

Question 57

Judith and Peter Blau developed the concept of __________, the idea that anger and mistrust result from perceptions of inequality that lead lower-class people to feel deprived and embittered in comparison with those more affluent.

A) inequality concentration
B) collective deprivation
C) cultural inequality
D) relative deprivation

Question 58

Which of Merton's social adaptations is most closely associated with criminal behavior?

A) Conformity
B) Innovation
C) Ritualism
D) Retreatism

Question 59

What is the result of ineffective community social control efforts?

A) Mutual trust increases.
B) Neighborhood cohesiveness strengthens.
C) Crime rates increase.
D) Siege mentality decreases.

Question 60

In regard to Anderson's study in Philadelphia addressing neighborhood life of youth and gangs, those individuals who were respected by residents and who at one time played an important role in socializing youth were referred to as ______.

A) ​old heads
B) ​dust devils
C) ​parrots
D) ​snitches

Question 61

Shaw and McKay's research on __________________ theory found that crime was the highest in Zone I and Zone II, typically the areas of transition within the city.

Question 62

The most important wielder of informal social control is the ______.

Question 63

Cloward and Ohlin's classic work Delinquency and Opportunity combined strain and social disorganization principles to explain ______.

A) violent crime
B) gang formation
C) vandalism
D) drug dealing

Question 64

Social control exerted by cohesive communities and based on mutual trust is known as _____.

Question 65

Keith, Mike, and Paul continuously find themselves making poor decisions that lead to law breaking behaviors and suspensions from school. Since they are lower class, Cloward and Ohlin would argue that the boys have limited means to achieving their goals. This in turn leads to their poor decision making. The theory which best describes this situation is ______.

A) ​differential opportunity
B) ​reaction formation
C) ​differential formation
D) ​anomie

Question 66

Because social conditions prevent them from achieving success legitimately, lower-class youths experience a form of culture conflict that Albert Cohen labels ______.

A) status frustration
B) youth deprivation
C) juvenile constants
D) teenage anomie

Question 67

General strain theory is not purely a structural theory because it focuses on how _____ influence behavior.

A) biological conditions
B) rational choices
C) life events
D) psychological conditions

Question 68

__________ reflects the view that multiple sources of strain interact with an individual's emotional traits and responses to criminality.

A) General strain theory
B) Relative deprivation theory
C) Focal concern theory
D) Anomie theory

Question 69

Keith, Mike, and Paul feel that they are good at many things but the standards at which they are judged successful or unsuccessful are unfair. The especially feel this way in school from their teachers and coaches. They are most likely being majored using ______.

A) ​lower-class measuring rod
B) ​middle-class measuring rod
C) ​upper-class measuring rod
D) ​social class measuring rod

Question 70

Subcultural values are handed down from one generation to the next in a process called ______.

A) norms transmission
B) social transmission
C) belief transmission
D) cultural transmission

Question 71

A set of values, beliefs, and traditions known as a/an ___________________ are ​unique to a particular social class or group within a larger society.

Question 72

According to ______________, the root cause of crime can be traced directly to the socioeconomic disadvantages that have become embedded in American society.

Question 73

Trouble, toughness, smartness, and excitement are all examples of values that have evolved specifically to fit conditions of the lower class known as ______.

A) ​cultural trepidations
B) ​focal concerns
C) ​cultural transmissions
D) ​social contracts

Question 74

_____________ theory holds that crime occurs when members of the lower class experience anger and frustration over their inability to achieve success.

Question 75

An area undergoing a shift in population and structure, usually from middle-class residential to lower-class mixed-use is known as a _____.

Question 76

People grouped according to economic or social class who are characterized by the unequal distribution of wealth, power, and prestige are referred to as a __________________.

Question 77

Walter Miller identified the unique conduct norms that define the lower-class culture and that often clash with conventional values. Which of the following is not one of those norms?

A) Fate
B) Toughness
C) Autonomy
D) Education

Question 78

Keith, Paul, and Mike are three teenage boys from outside of Pittsburgh, PA who have struggled to fit in with the other kids in athletics, as well as academically. They come from traditional blue collar families and, based on socioeconomic status, would be considered low class. Mike, Paul, and Keith decide to steal a bunch of oranges from a market and instead of eating them, throw them down the drain and waste them so that the store owner can feel their pain. This is a very malicious act, and clearly is non-utilitarian. The theory which is best supported here would be ______.​

A) ​delinquent subculture
B) ​social bond
C) ​cultural transmission
D) ​social disorganization

Question 79

The _________________ school associates community deterioration and economic decline with crime rates.

Question 80

Cohen's theory of delinquent subcultures focuses on social conditions that prevent lower-class youths from achieving success legitimately. Cohen labels this form of culture conflict ______.

A) success frustration
B) status frustration
C) social frustration
D) lower-class delinquent frustration