a) Structural
strain is all about opposite behaviour an
individual indulges in because of pressures from the society.
Every society around the world have certain norms or ways in
which we all have to behave but sometimes due to pressures for
example; poverty or lack of jobs people experience societal
pressure and get involved in behaviours which are unethical or
amoral.
When the society puts pressure on someone to achieve a dream and
the person is not able to due to lack of means then they experience
strain and indulge in crimes for example drugs or prostitution.
b)SOURCES OF
STRUCTURAL STRAIN IN INDIA/US
India is a huge country with 1.3 billion of population and
everybody has aspirations to become someone or achieve some
milestone in life.
But since its a huge country people also experience a lot of
stress and depression due to;
- poverty
- employment opportunities:- lack of education especially in
rural India since they cant afford studies in big schools or
universities
- caste system
- socio-economic differences:- unequal distribution of monetary
resources
- belief system
- political system:- violation of human rights
And all these factors lead to people being under pressure from
the society in general and family to achieve something. for
example; In India every person needs a job to do, some people want
to set up their own businesses and when one cant find any sources
to raise money people especially younger generation of India
indulge in crimes like robbery,kidnapping etc.
People in U.S also experience this strain because of racism and
classism because they also aim for the same goals of economic
success as the rest of the society but inequalities in society
limit them to achieve this success.
for example; the Black Lives Matter Movement that happened shows
this strain.
c)RESPONSES TO
STRUCTURAL STRAIN (MERTON'S TYPOLOGY)-WAYS TO ADAPT WHEN PEOPLE
EXPERIENCE STRAIN
- CONFORMITY:- this describes those people who accept the both
culturally valued goals and legitimate ways to achieving economic
success for example working part time to earn money and saving it
to start your business
- INNOVATION:- this describes people who use illegitimate means
to achieve success like stealing,drug dealing etc.
- RITUALISM:- these people use legitimate means to achieve
success but they dont set up too high goals for themselves. They
set up more modest goals for themselves. they would be happy with
an average job too.
- REBELLION:- they reject the cultural goals and means and find
ways to replace them and do something out of the box ;find
something new to do and achieve, it can lead to crime,violence and
terrorism.
- RETREATISM:- they reject the cultural goals and legitimate ways
of attaining something and try to escape from it by just giving up
on everything
d) THE SAINTS
AND THE ROUGHNECKS BY WILLIAM J. CHAMBLISS
- the saints were
were the higher class who were intelligent and well dressed and the
roughnecks
were the middles class ones treated as criminals.
- According to the strain theory Saints use
INNOVATION of adapting to strain as they accept
the cultural goals in the society but use uncoventional means to
achieve them; they did achieve success but were not as successful
as others in the long run.The Roughnecks rejected the cultural
goals of completing school and used REBELLION as a
way to adapt to strain in order to seek new goals through new
means.
- The socio economic status of the boys was a primary driver of
how they were perceived or treated in the society.