CC100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Gunnar Myrdal, Oscar Lewis, Social Disorganization Theory
Document Summary
Social stratification: unequal distribution of wealth, power, and prestige. Social class: people who have similar wealth, values, attitudes, and lifestyle. Reduced poverty among the elderly: access to healthcare, pensions, social security. Effects: baron: occupational strain solved by crime, bolland: hopelessness increases violence, substance use, sexual behaviour, and accidental injury. Lower class: problems of housing, lack of healthcare, family breakups, underemployment, high levels of dropping out, teenage pregnancy. Oscar lewis (1966): the culture of poverty: apathy, cynicism, mistrust of social institutions, cause/effect of poverty, transmitted from generation to generation, self-defeating. Structural: weak link between economic conditions and crime rates, high unemployment rates do not necessarily result in higher crime. Individual: convicted offenders are likely to have poor work records and high levels of unemployment. Characteristics of disorganization: transient population (high turnover, mixed-use neighbourhood (e. g. , residential and commercial side-by-side, lack essential services, high unemployment, single-parent families, dependence on social assistance, substandard housing. Social institutions: have broken down, lack authority to control behaviour.
