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Instructional Objectives for this activity:
· Distinguish between mainstream and deviant cultural behaviors and their impact on microstructures and macrostructures of society.
· Apply the basic ideas and focus of the following three major theoretical perspectives: the structural-functional paradigm, the conflict paradigm, and the symbolic interaction paradigm. |
Read "Islands in the Street: Urban Gangs in the United States" (p.145) in
Essentials of Sociology
to obtain background information. What are the functions that gangs fulfill (the needs they meet)?
Suppose you have been hired as an urban planner for the city of Los Angeles. How could you arrange to meet the needs that gangs fulfill in ways that minimize violence and encourage youth to follow mainstream norms?
Using your textbook and additional resources, write a two page paper addressing the issues of Gangs in America.
Be certain to use all three major sociological theories - functionalism, conflict theory, and interactionism - in your analysis. Explain deviance such as street gangs from all three of the main sociological perspectives.
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In the Book: page 145
Islands in the street: Urban Gangs in the United States
For more than ten years, sociologist Martin Sa’nchez- Jankowski (1991) did participant observation of thirty-seven African American, Chicano, Dominican, Irish, Jamaican, and Puerto Rican gangs in Boston, Los Angeles, and New York City. The gangs earned money through gambling, arson, mugging, armed robbery, and sell-ing mooning, drug, guns, stolen car parts, and protection. Sanchez’ Jankowski ate, slept, and fought with the gangs, but by mutual agreement he did not participate in drug dealing or other illegal activates. He seriously injured twice during the study.
Contrary to stereotype, Sanchez- Jankowski did not find that the motive for joining was to escape a broken home (there were as many members from intact families as from broken homes) or to seek a substitute family (the same number of boys said they were close to their families as those who said they were not). Rather, the boys joined to gain access to money, to have recreation (including girls and drugs), to maintain anonymity in committing crimes, to get protection, and to help community. This last reason may seem surprising, but in some neighborhoods, gangs protect residents from outsiders and searched political change (Kontos et al. 2003).
Neighborhood residents are ambivalent about gangs. On the hand, they fear the violence. On the other hand, many of the adults once be-longed to gangs, some gangs provide better protection than the police, and gang members are the children of people who live in the neighborhood. Particular gangs will come and go, but gangs will likely always remain part of the city. As functionalists point out, gangs fulfill needs of poor youth who live on the margins of society.
For your Consideration:
What functions do gangs fulfill ( what needs do they meet)? Suppose that you have been hired as an urban planner for the city of Los Angeles. How could you arrange to meet the needs the gangs fulfill in way that minimize violence and encourage youth to follow mainstream norms?
In the book. Page 145.