4.1 Chapter Overview and Learning Objectives
Overview
This chapter will examine how social scientists explain the social world, with a particular focus on the intersection of race and crime. We will review the fundamentals of theory, explain how we theorize, and the different frameworks that we use to interpret the world. Next, we will focus on the relationship between theories that help us understand race and crime. Theories attempt systematic explanations for why things happen and certain patterns or trends in society. For example, why are more people of color incarcerated than white people? Throughout this chapter, we will explain common theories and frameworks while simultaneously discussing the strengths and shortcomings of each theory. The theories discussed in this chapter include both race-specific and race-neutral perspectives. Whenever applicable, examples will be used to demonstrate how theories discussed in this chapter impact lives in the real world. It is worth noting that all of these theories are based on the assumption that crime is accurately measured.
Learning Objectives
- Describe the purpose of theory in social research and how sociological theory helps us understand race and ethnicity.
- Describe the biological, psychological, sociological, and criminological theories used to explain race and crime.
- Recognize and critique the racist ideologies that underscore many early theories related to race and crime.
Key Terms
- Code of the streets: stressed a hyperinflated notion of manhood that centers on the idea of respect, published by Elijah Anderson in 1999; also called street culture.
- Conditioning: personality traits and behavioral characteristics that people learn.
- Conflict theories: theories that examine society through the lens of power struggles and inequality, often applied to inequalities of gender, social class, education, race, and ethnicity.
- Critical race theory (CRT): the idea that institutional racism is so embedded in the legal institutions of the United States that law functions to create and maintain inequalities between white and Black people.
- Double consciousness: Black people carry dual notions of how they see themselves, while at the same time negotiating how they are seen through the lens of racial oppression (Du Bois, 2015).
- Eugenics: manipulation of the human gene pool by controlling reproduction and/or eliminating populations deemed inferior.
- Functionalism: emphasizes that all the elements of society have functions that promote solidarity and maintain order and stability in society.
- General strain theory: an expansion of strain theory that argues that strain can come from multiple sources – beyond economic barriers – and lead to criminal behavior when one lacks effective coping skills.
- Inherited: traits and characteristics people have due to genetics.
- Interlocking oppressions: a theory that exposes the philosophical foundations underlying multiple systems of oppression (Collins, 1986).
- Intersectionality: a theory that suggests we cannot separate the effects of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and other attributes (Collins, 1990).
- Labeling: a sociological concept describing how labeling people or providing meanings attached to labels has real social consequences.
- Matrix of domination: a concept that says that society has multiple interlocking levels of domination that stem from the societal configuration of race, class, and gender (Andersen and Collins, 1992).
- Paradigm: a perspective or lens through which one views reality.
- Race-neutral focus: theories that were not designed to address racial differences in crime and victimization; they assume all groups are equal.
- Race-specific focus: theories that center their discussion on race and ethnicity.
- Scientific racism: ideology that “appropriates the methods and legitimacy of science to argue for the superiority of white Europeans and the inferiority of non-white people whose social and economic status have been historically marginalized” (National Human Genome Research Institute, 2022).
- Social disorganization theory: the theory that neighborhoods with weak community controls caused by poverty, residential mobility, and ethnic heterogeneity will experience a higher level of criminal and delinquent behavior.
- Status frustration theory: a theory that argues that four factors – social class, school performance, status frustration, and reaction formation (coping methods) – contribute to the development of delinquency in juveniles (Cohen, 1955).
- Strain theory: Merton’s theory that people face strain when institutional goals and available means to those goals do not align, sometimes resulting in a willingness to take alternative routes that may involve crime to obtain those desired goals.
- Symbolic interactionism: a micro-level theory that focuses on meanings attached to human interaction, both verbal and non-verbal, and to symbols.
- Subculture: an identifiable subgroup within the larger culture whose values may differ from those present in the dominant group.
- Subculture of violence: a theory that suggests violence is not expressed in every situation, but rather that individuals are constantly prepared for violence (Wolfgang and Ferracuti, 1982).
Licenses and Attributions for Chapter Overview and Learning Objectives
Open Content, Original
“Chapter Overview and Learning Objectives” by Shanell Sanchez and Jessica René Peterson is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Open Content, Shared Previously
Figure 4.1. Image by Andrea Piacquadio is licensed under the Pexels License.
All Rights Reserved Content
“Scientific Racism” definition from the National Human Genome Research Institute is included under fair use.
a category of people grouped because they share inherited physical characteristics that are identifiable, such as skin color, hair texture, facial features, and stature
scientific explanations of things happening around us, such as patterns in social behavior, and how certain things are related
a group of people living in a defined geographic area that has a common culture
shared social, cultural, and historical experiences of people from common national or regional backgrounds that make subgroups of a population different
