SOCY 275 Midterm: SOCY 275 Topic 4-6

• School: George Brown College
• Department: Social Sci, Edu and Soc Work - Sociology
• Course: SOCY 275
• Professor: Vincent F Sacco

Document Summary

Emile durkheim: anomie: normlessness no social regulation, anomie in the division of labour in society, discovered anomie in his study of suicide. Robert merton lack of integration between goals + methods: social structure and anomie. Deviance is a product of the way society is put together. Cultural structure out of sync with social structure causes pressure on people: strain theory: strain resulted from the interplay of three elements. Cultural goals especially the goals of success. Institutionalized means of goal attainment especially inherited wealth/education. Actual distribution of the means of goal attainment how you go about seeking those goals: argued that deviance = problem solving behaviour. People explore deviant solution when society presents them with problems for which conformist solutions are not available. These problems are most acute in lower social classes because it is there that people are more likely to experience the disjuncture between the things they aspire to vs what is actually available to them.