Differential opportunity
Definition
Cloward and Ohlin's extension of Merton's strain theory: the type of criminal adaptation that people choose depends not only on blocked legitimate opportunities but on the illegitimate opportunities actually available in their neighbourhood.
Related terms
- Code of the street
- Elijah Anderson's term for an informal set of rules governing public behaviour in disadvantaged urban areas. The code centres on the display...
- Honour culture
- A cultural context in which personal reputation for toughness or willingness to defend oneself against insults is essential to social standing. Researchers...
- Reaction formation
- A concept Cohen borrowed from psychology to describe the process by which delinquent subcultures do not merely abandon middle-class values but actively...
- Status frustration
- Cohen's term for the psychological tension experienced by working-class boys who are measured against middle-class standards in school and find themselves repeatedly...
- Subculture
- A group within a larger society that shares a distinctive set of values, norms, symbols, and practices. In criminology, the term usually...
Explained in
- Subcultural Theories of CrimeCloward and Ohlin's extension of Merton's strain theory: the type of criminal adaptation that people choose depends not only on blocked legitimate opportunitie...