SOCY 275 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Louis Wirth, Herbert J. Gans, Social Disorganization Theory

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Social Sci, Edu and Soc Work - Sociology
• Course: SOCY 275
• Professor: Stephen Baron

Document Summary

These theories try to explain the causes of crime and deviance in reference to environmental factors which make such behaviour more or less likely. This means that such theories attempt to make sense of the spatial distribution of prohibited behaviour. A bunch of non-traditional things occur greater rates in larger cities then small towns: not just negative things, things such as fashion, inventions and art. Cities have certain structural characteristics that are the independent variables that produce the outcomes. Sensory input is battered in the city and it becomes difficult to cope with, people tend to close off to others in a reaction to the oppressive environment. Studies later declare that wirth was wrong about his findings, Urban composition (herbert gans: studies about large italian enclave in boston, these people did(cid:374)(cid:859)t li(cid:448)e their life like they (cid:449)ere i(cid:374) a large, de(cid:374)se e(cid:374)(cid:448)iro(cid:374)(cid:373)e(cid:374)t, did (cid:374)ot suffer of close people off, The importance of population composition: age, social class.