Status Frustration
Definition
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 judged as inferior. The frustration motivates a collective rejection of those standards and the formation of an alternative status system.
- Originator
- Albert Cohen
- Field
- Subcultural criminology
- Affected group
- Working-class boys judged by middle-class measuring rods
- Outcome
- Rejection of mainstream standards, formation of a delinquent status system
Common questions
How does status frustration differ from simple poverty as an explanation for delinquency?+
It locates the cause in a psychological reaction to repeated status denial in institutions like school, not in material deprivation alone, so two equally poor boys can respond differently depending on how acutely they experience being measured and found wanting.
What role does the school play in generating status frustration?+
Cohen argued schools apply a single middle-class measuring rod to all pupils regardless of background, so working-class boys who lack the cultural resources to meet it accumulate repeated failure experiences that the theory treats as the trigger for collective rejection of those standards.
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