Social Structure, Culture, and Crime: Assessing Kornhauser’S Challenge to Criminology1
6 Social Structure, Culture, and Crime: Assessing Kornhauser’s Challenge to Criminology1 Ross L. Matsueda Ruth Kornhauser’s (1978) Social Sources of Delinquency has had a lasting infl uence on criminological theory and research. This infl uence consists of three contributions. First, Kornhauser (1978) developed a typology of criminological theories—using labels social disorganization, control, strain, and cultural devi- ance theories—that persists today. She distinguished perspectives by assump- tions about social order, motivation, determinism, and level of explanation, as well as by implications for causal models of delinquency. Second, Kornhauser addressed fundamental sociological concepts, including social structure, culture, and social situations, and provided a critical evaluation of their use within differ- ent theoretical perspectives. Third, she helped foster a resurgence of interest in social control and social disorganization theories of crime (e.g., Gottfredson and Hirschi 1990; Hirschi 1969; Sampson and Laub 1993; Bursik and Webb 1982; Kubrin and Weitzer 2003; Sampson and Groves 1989), both indirectly via the infl uence of an early version of the manuscript that would become Social Sources (see Chapter 3 in this volume) on Hirschi’s (1969) Causes of Delinquency , and directly via the infl uence of her book on the revitalization of social disorgani- zation theories of crime. Kornhauser’s infl uence on the writings of Hirschi, Bursik, and Sampson was particularly signifi cant and positive, as control and disorganization theo- ries came to dominate the discipline, stimulating a large body of research that increased our understanding of conventional institutional control of crime and delinquency through community organization, family life, and school effects.
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