SOC Deviance and Social Control

SAINT LEO UNIVERSITY

SOC 345 Deviance and Social Control

Mid-Term Examination

Answer each question in a one to two-page essay format. Use information from Adler and Adler (2012) and other supplemental readings to answer the questions. Make sure you use proper citation procedures.

1. Sociologist Robert Merton identified five ways in which people adapt to cultural goals and approved ways of achieving them. Look at the people in the attached photos and identify which of Merton’s modes of adaptation might best explain their views on social life. Why?

2. Cloward and Olin believed that “deviant behavior depends on people’s access to illegitimate opportunities” (Adler & Adler, p. 64). Provide examples of illegitimate opportunity structures. Discuss what social conditions make these circumstances possible.

3. Using the conflict perspective discuss why the activities of poor and lower-income individuals are more often defined as criminal than those of middle- and upper – income persons.

4. A fictitious character from feminist author Marilyn French’s book, The Women’s Room (1977) stated that, “Whatever they may be in public life, whatever their relationships with men, in their relationships with women, all men are rapists, and that's all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, and their codes". This is one of the most quoted and criticized lines of her novel. What messages was French trying to convey with this line of reasoning?