URBANIZATION, INDUSTRIALIZATION, DEVIANCE, RACE & ETHNICITY

URBANIZATION, CRIME, & DEVIANCE

Urbanization is a worldwide process

	the later it begins, the more rapidly it usually proceeds
	always has a beginning, a middle, and an end
	the end, obviously, is when, statistically, rural population is very small

Jane Jacobs : The Death & Life of Great American Cities & The Economy of Cities, Cities & the Wealth of Nations

Specialization & Urbanization

the division of labor creates new work

	D + A = D' (new output)
	i.e., division of labor + added labor = new output
	Silicon Valley, e.g.

Two kinds of city growth

slow growth: export multipliers

cities grow by increasing their exports (add on to their existing industries)

EXPORT MULTIPLIERS: adding exports adds work, which leads to workers coming to town, whose kids need to be clothed, fed, taught, entertained (these are the multipliers)

Rapid or Explosive City Growth: addition of work, new kinds of work

new industry -- i.e., not just adding on to existing industry

IMPORT REPLACEMENT: this triggers a chain of export multipliers (i.e., for each new industry, there are new export multipliers)

"The Chicago School" & the impact of urbanization

University of Chicago sociologists: the studied sociological processes associated with urbanization & cities

3 Waves of Migration / 1930s and 1940s

	"classical" urbanization - "hicks" moving into the city
	migration from Europe (esp. Eastern Europe)
	classical urb., again: rural black farmers from the south

Convergence of different types of people gave and continues to give race/ethnicity a special salience

	i.e., groups were identifiable & were identified in terms of external traits
	race = a social category based upon some inherited, biological characteristic
	ethnicity = a social category based upon some cultural trait or characteristics

stereotypes = simplified, rigid mental images of what members of a certain group are like

discrimination = the unequal treatment of certain people on the basis of their race or ethnicity (not to mention, of course, gender)

beliefs about others shape our social relations with them: perhaps nowhere more evident than in urban areas

The Chicago Sociologists also studied settlement patterns on the migrants and immigrants to Chicago; patterns they called:

Ecology of the City (i.e., the "process of invasion and settlement of a territory")

General pattern = concentric circles/zones

migrants moved into the zone next to the central business district (Zone II)

	transportation and access to work
	the well-off move out of that zone into the next

In Zone II, migrants began to settle in culturally homogenous areas called "natural areas" (among their fellow migrants)

	language, shared customs
	ease difficult transition period
	in short, CULTURE determined the settlement pattern

Most people left Zone Two in 4-7 years, begin to move out to Zone 3

Thus, called zone in transition

This movement outward is related to issue of Assimilation

	Assimilation: "a process of cooperation in which one ethnic group loses its identity"
	as immigrants move into zone 3, they become more and more assimilated

Theories we've discussed thus far give impression of urbanization as a smooth transition: not everyone saw things in this way

SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION -- ANOTHER THEME OF THE CHICAGO SCHOOL

	Louis Wirth & disorganization (versus the organizational ideas of ecology and natural areas): "the city as a troubled place"
	prejudice: organization to lock immigrant groups into the inner city, the ghetto
	endless suffering in the zone in transition (crime, poverty)
	By any measure, the crime rate in Zone 2, the zone in transition, was very much higher than in any other part of the city

Key: crime/deviance cannot be explained by way of biological or psychological factors!

sociological explanation, because it locates crime in, and identifies it as a function OF, a particular place and context.

	the turnover rate for the population in the zone in transition
	means the crime rate stays high in Zone 2, even though the people living there changed every 4-7 years
	therefore, it cannot be explained in terms of individuals so, neither psychological or biological explanation can work

Other theorists began to agree with Wirth's hypothesis, asserting the crime is a function of:

	Thorsten Sellin (culture conflict)
	Frederick Thrasher (gang activity)
	&Daniel Bell's article "Crime as an American Way of Life"

Chicago School demonstrated the fundamental significance of social structure

	NOT that individual psychological differences are not relevant; it's just that they aren't very important
	psychological and biological explanation individualize social problems
	leads us to focus on a fundamental sociological question? "Why do people deviate?" (Or, maybe a better question is why do people abide by the rules?)

Other Sociological Views of Deviance

Learning & conformity: Edwin Sutherland & "differential association" = basically, the idea that our behavior is a matter of conforming with the behavior of the social group to which we belong

Sykes & Matza's "techniques of neutralization"

&#Deviance & Opportunity Structures

	Merton's theory of anomie
	cultural goals of success (ambition, wealth, upward mobility, autonomy) conflict with the socially structured available avenues to achieve them

Functionalism

	basic premise = the belief that deviant behavior is functional (in Durkheim's sense of contributing to the cohesion of a society)
	the negative sanctioning of certain behaviors helps to clarify the beliefs and values of the larger society.
	so, deviance contributes to the sense of cohesion -- shared beliefs

Labeling, or societal reaction theory

	rather than focusing on the act or the actor, this theory focuses on the attribution of deviance: i.e., on those empowered to "label" a given behavior as not norm-al
	so, it's not that an act is intrinsically deviant, but that someone with the cultural (belief) authority to call it deviant chooses to define it as such.

Howard Becker (Outsiders) -- official agencies define as deviant those behaviors which they perceive to be capable of undermining the status quo

"moral entrepreneurs": i.e., those experts and professionals whose careers depend upon there being a stable supply of so-called deviants

Edwin Lemert: distinguished between primary and secondary deviance

	primary: the deviant doesn't get caught or officially processed
	secondary: societal reaction: i.e., the deviant is caught in the act, and officially processed. This processing produces an official identity as a deviant: a label
	secondary deviance: occurs when the person takes on his/her deviant identity & begins to organize life around the pursuit of the deviant activity & around the deviant identity

Importance of societal reaction theory: it drew attention to the political nature of defining human behavior, and to the political use of "expert" or professional knowledge

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