Albert K. Cohen

Albert K. Cohen was the first man who attempted to find out the process of beginning of a delinquent subculture. Also, his perspective has been referred to as an integrating theory of several sociological theories such as the Chicago School sociologists’ work, Merton’s strain theory, culture conflict theory, and Sutherland’s differential association theory.

In the first chapter, I dealt with a social context of Cohen’s theory. In this chapter I talked about the background of "fear of juvenile delinquency," which started since World War II, and peaked in 1950s. In the second chapter, I discussed the influence of several sociological theories on Cohen’s theory. The third chapter was focused on a review of Cohen’s notable book, "Delinquent Boy: the culture of the gang." In the fourth chapter, I explained several critiques about Cohen’s theory. Finally, I presented several studies briefly, which were concerned about assumptions of Cohen’s theory.

In 1955, Albert Cohen published Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gangs, one of the most influential criminological treatises. Analyzed from our current position, it becomes quite apparent that this work was very much a product of the 1950s. Having won World War II and with the country returning to normalcy, Americans were possessed once again by the "American Dream." People believed that a prosperous future could be attained by education and employment. Middle-class values that emphasized ambition and material success became dominant, and anything else was not accepted as normal. Behind this promising climate, however, the great fear about a rise in juvenile delinquency lurked (Lilly, Cullen, and Ball, 1995:91-92).

The public concern about juvenile delinquency was not a new trend in 1950s’ America. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, juvenile delinquency had been used as a label applied to youthful misbehavior, but applied mostly to lower class and immigrant children (Gilbert, 1986:25). However, it was not until the period of World War II that the concern about juvenile delinquency was heightened to the level of "fear."

During the 1950s, the fear of the public about juvenile delinquency deepened. As Gilbert (1986:63) explained, "a poll taken by the Roper organization in 1959 suggested that delinquency was viewed more seriously than open-air testing of atomic weapons or school segregation or political corruption." A federal institution, the Children’s Bureau, and a private organization, the American Bar Association, attempted to frame public concerns by investigating the causes of rising delinquency (Gilbert, 1986:64).

Gilbert (1986:71) presented three factors for the great fear of delinquency in the 1950s: firstly, an increase of the incidence of juvenile crime, which was reported by the FBI and the Children’s Bureau enhanced the public concern; secondly, law enforcement agencies increased the arrest rate, encouraged by government, pressure groups and public opinion; finally, changed were many status crimes or acts regarded as criminals only because of the age of the actors such as "underage drinking, sex delinquency, breaking a curfew, or driving an automobile without a license." Gilbert (1986:71) argued that for the above reasons, the public impressions of the severity of delinquency problems were exaggerated.

Cohen’s subculture theory was one version of the postwar studies of delinquency. His theory was based on the Chicago sociologists’ works, and at the same time, was the extension of Merton’s strain theory.

In 1920s and 1930s, the Chicago sociologists developed the "social disorganization perspectives," which departed from the previous pathological viewpoints, and saw deviance as a by-product of rapid social change. They contended that rapid social change created areas where breakdown of community control occurred, and the people living in such socially disorganized zones were vulnerable to the temptation of crimes. The Chicago theorists used careful observation and empirical measurement rather than the type of speculation used by the pathologists. The most notable empirical research can be found in the works done by Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay. In their influential work, "Delinquent Areas (1929)," Shaw and McKay found that the highest rates of delinquent were concentrated in the expanding central business center, and the crime rates were consistent with the rates of indicators of social disorganization. They concluded that the social disorganization among immigrant groups, who were forced to be adjusted to a new culture, produced crimes in the transition zone (Pfohl, 1994:190-191).

Sutherland replaced the concept of "social disorganization" with "differential social organization" to explain why crime rates concentrated on certain area (slum). He contended that social groups were differently organized. Some groups were organized as more supportive of deviant behavior; others were organized as deterrent to such behavior (Lilly, Cullen, and Ball, 1995:46). Later, Sutherand devised the concept of "differential association" to explain how an individual became a criminal. The differential association theory viewed that a person became delinquent when he/she acquired definitions favorable to crimes over definitions unfavorable to crimes, and this process of acquiring definitions about crimes was made through associations with others (Pfhol, 1994:302-303). The degree of differential association is dependent on the frequency, duration, priority and intensity of one’s association (Pfhol, 1994:302).

Cohen’s theory was built on the basis of the Chicago School theorists’ works and Sutherland’s perspectives. Cohen assumed that the delinquent subculture was found in the lower class, where the social control was not strong enough to constrain the delinquency. In "Delinquent Boys," he asserted that "the delinquent subculture was mostly to be found in the working class"(Cohen, 1955:73). However, he also criticized the social disorganization theory in that the social organization - indeed, it was not adequate for constraining the delinquency effectively - existed in the delinquent area, and the social disorganization theory did not explain "the origin of the impulse to be delinquent, of the peculiar content and spirit of the delinquent subculture"(Cohen, 1955:33). Cohen argued that crime culture existed in certain social groups and the individuals learned the value of the delinquent subculture through participation in gangs same as Sutherland contended. He however went further from that and wanted to find the origin of the delinquent culture. In his theory, Cohen tried to explain why children of the lower class were induced to become delinquent boys and what the characteristics of delinquent subculture were.

As another perspective of Chicago theorists, Robert Park borrowed the concept of "conflict" from plant ecology. In "Human Communities (1921)," he viewed that some forces of change such as urbanization, immigration invaded the well-organized community, then conflict between the forces of change and the existing normative order happened for dominance within the community (Pfohl, 1994:187-190). However, we can find out the best explanation of "culture conflict theory" in Thorsten Sellin’s works. In his book, "Culture Conflict and Crime (1938)," he presented two kinds of culture conflicts. The first one, "primary conflict" occurred when two different two cultures affected human behavior. The act considered a crime in terms of one culture could be not a crime by the other culture. The other was "secondary conflict," which occurred between a larger culture and a smaller culture (subculture) that was created within the larger culture. When the standards of the larger culture were inconsistent with those internalized in their own culture, people became confused. For example, a child who fostered in the subculture that did not respect the law was prone to temptation of deviance.

The culture conflict theory also had an influence on Cohen’s theory. Cohen’s argument is similar to that of the culture conflict theory. Since delinquent boys rejected all middle-class standards, and accepted the opposing standards, some acts considered delinquent by the middle-class standards were not wrong by the delinquent boys’ standards. Cohen, however, criticized the culture conflict theory for failure to explain why the conflicting definitions about morality in the delinquency area led children into the delinquency (Cohen, 1955:34-35).

The most important theories that influenced Cohen’s theory was Merton’s strain theory. In his notable essay, "Social Structure and Anomie," Merton focused on the anomie deriving from the lack of equilibrium between means and ends of action. He argued that in American society where cultural goals were overemphasized at the expense of institutional means, but not everyone could achieve the desired goals, it was most likely that illegal means would be used for attaining those goals. He viewed American society as a society that pressed people to be successful. His emphasis was not on the structurally limited opportunity for success, but on the culturally induced pressure to be successful (Orru, 1987:122). Merton analyzed five categories of individual adaptation to anomie: conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism, and rebellion. Among them, innovation was the act applied by persons who were forced to attain cultural goals, but experienced incapability of attaining those goals by legitimate means. To solve this contradiction, they drew upon the use of illegitimate means. Even though Merton borrowed the concept of anomie from Durkheim, Merton’s anomie was different from Durkheim’s. While Durkheim focused on the obscure definition of cultural goals, Merton emphasized the consequences of social pressure on the behavior of individuals. Merton saw the overemphasis on the material success problematic because it resulted in deviance. Merton also regarded anomie as "a normal response to a specific kind of structurally generated social pressure" because it was "an unintended consequence of democracy;" whereas, Durkheim’s notion was that anomie is an abnormal form, and "contradiction of all morality"(Orru, 1987:123-124).

Cohen’s theory was based on the structural strains generated by the discrepancy between socially desired goals and the means to attain them. Cohen argued that delinquent gangs arose as a result of the class structure of American society. The working-class children feel status-frustration in American society where middle-class values are dominant, because while these youth possess aspirations for intellectual or occupational success, they realize their incapacity for meeting these goals. So, they solve this status problem by creating a delinquent subculture that rejects all of middle-class values (reaction formation) and represents their antithesis.

In this sense, Cohen used fundamental concepts of Merton’s theory, and his work seems to be a simple application of Merton’s theory. Though it is true that Cohen was an advocate of Merton’s theory and contributed much to the elaboration of the anomie perspective, he attempted to account for the other characteristics of delinquent subculture that the traditional anomie theories had disregarded. He said, "This argument (anomie theory) is sociologically sophisticated and highly plausible as an explanation for adult professional crime and for the property delinquency of some older and semi-professional juvenile thieves. Unfortunately, it fails to account for the non-utilitarian quality of the subculture" (Cohen, 1955:36). He also said that anomie theory did not deal with other characteristics of the delinquent subculture such as "the destructiveness," "the versatility," "the zest," and "the wholesale negativism" (Cohen, 1955:36). Later, Cohen criticized Merton’s theory in his article, "The Sociology of the Deviant Act: Anomie Theory and Beyond (1965)." He argued that Merton’s formulation was atomic and individualistic (Cohen, 1965:6). After noticing that Merton treated the process of deviance as if an individual separated from others selected one or another mode of deviant adaptation, he contended that the process of deviance was dependent on association with others and references groups.

Cohen also criticized the idea that the anomie theory assumed the discontinuity between a state of strain or anomie and the deviant act. He viewed the adaptation of a deviant act to strain as a tentative and gradual process between actors suffering the same problems (Cohen, 1965:8-9).

Albert Cohen, in his book Delinquency Boys (1955), first employed the concept of the subculture in relation to juvenile delinquency. He noted that a delinquent subculture was the most common form in American society, especially in lower-class males. The concept of the delinquent subculture itself was not a new one because it had been already described in the cultural-transmission theories. While the cultural-transmission theories treated it as it had already existed, Cohen, however, focused on the process by which the subculture was created and the way it was adapted by the child. To solve these problems he borrowed an idea from the psychogenic theory, and tried to integrate it with the cultural-transmission theory. The psychogenic theory, he said, viewed delinquency as a way of overcoming a problem of adjustment. He also said that subcultural and psychogenic factors simultaneously but independently acted on delinquency.

He characterized the delinquent subcultures as "non-utilitarian, malicious, and negativistic"(Cohen, 25). He exemplified gang stealing; juvenile delinquents’ stealing does not have any utilitarian consideration of gains, and they steal "for the hell of it." The delinquent subculture is malicious in that the delinquents express malice, contempt and defiance toward the society from which they are apart. It holds a rule that is opposed to the norms of the larger culture, even though the delinquents’ conduct is right by their own standards.

The nature of delinquent culture, he said also, was versatile because they did not specialize in particular deviance unlike many adult gangs. Using Cohen’s words, "stealing tends to go hand-in-hand with other property offenses, malicious mischief, vandalism, trespass, and truancy"(Cohen, 29). As another characteristic of the delinquent subculture he mentioned "short-run hedonism." He said that delinquents just hung around the street corner without long-run goals about their activities and followed the impulsive desire to have fun. Finally, Cohen said that gang members emphasized group autonomy, or intolerance of restraint except from the informal pressures within the group itself. Gang members usually keep strongly and closely united relationship, whereas they resist the regulation from outside groups such as home, school, and other agencies.

Cohen explained about a general theory of subculture by adopting the psychogenic’s point of view about "mechanisms of adjustments" in Chapter III of "Delinquent Boys." He said all human action was an effort to solve problems that a person encountered living in society, and these problems were generated by two factors, that is, "frame of reference" and the "situation " the person confronted.

Every human is surrounded by different situation that limits what one can have and do, which results in problems. Every human, also, recognizes the situation in different ways because how he sees the fact is influenced much by subjective factors such as interests, experiences and fixed ideas. Morality about what to do and what not to do stems from the moral standard within one’s frame of reference. Thus, Cohen said that if he wanted to attain satisfying solution to the problems, he must change his frame of reference somewhat because mostly frame of reference left people with "feelings of tension, frustration, resentment, guilt, bitterness, anxiety or hopelessness"(Cohen, 53).

Even when one tried to solve the problem by using illicit means, Cohen continued, whether the solution was satisfying or not depended on the degree that guilt was eliminated by a change in moral standards. In addition, Cohen said that human problems did not have the same meaning to a person in relation to his/her position in the social class system; the opportunities for attaining of social success were not evenly distributed by the position he stated out at; this discrepancy resulted in the problems of adjustment. Cohen said that even though individuals wanted to be a member of some groups basically and were strongly motivated to conform to the ways that the groups pressed them to follow, sometimes they tried to deviate from the ways established in the groups and sought new cultural forms. He wanted to explain how this cultural innovation could rise in such a strongly motivated milieu.

Cohen said that the crucial condition for innovation was "effective interaction with one another, a number of actors with similar problems of adjustment"(Cohen, 59). Individuals suffering from problems of adjustment strive for a solution not from the ways institutionalized in society but from an innovation of frames of references. Cohen argued the establishment of subculture started with "exploratory gestures"; each participant in the innovation showed prudent sign of innovation to the others and those suffering from similar problems of adjustment reacted to it by approval and support. The participants motivated by this gesture proceeded to mutual exploration and elaboration. Finally, after compromising to arrive at a new solution, the participants mutually encouraged others to accept the newly formed culture.

Cohen sought to account for the emergence of delinquent subculture among juveniles by showing that problems of adjustment were strongly related to the social class of juveniles. He alleged that the delinquent subculture was mostly to be found in the working class (Cohen, 73). Although working-class children did not necessarily confront problems of adjustment more than middle-class children did, he argued that it was probable that there were correlation between the kinds of problems which working-class children had and social context where they existed and the delinquent subculture was widespread.

Cohen saw that the social class of a certain child’s family determined the problems and experiences that he would have in society. However, children have no choice but to accept their ascribed social classes because their social classes are dependent on their families' status. Children have knowledge of social class system through perception of the class status of their family when they reach the pre-adolescent age. They perceive themselves as a member of families rather than as individuals. The process of perception of one’s social class is made by observing the different ways his parents apply to those in different social classes, discerning the signs of other social classes such as clothing, equipment and neighborhood and parents’ regulation of his associates.

In a democratic society, children are not evaluated against others of their own stratum but against "all comers," and measured by same criteria, "the middle-class measuring rod," which is devised by middle-class members regardless of family background. These criteria are derived from "middle-class norms," which are also "manifestations of the dominant American value system"(Cohen, 87). Cohen explained middle-class standards applied to the male role in terms of nine criteria: the possession of ambition; individual responsibility; the cultivation and possession of skills; asceticism; rationality; the rational cultivation of manners, courtesy and personality; the control of physical aggression and violence; "wholesome recreation"; and the respect for property (Cohen, 88).

Whether one was a working-class boy or a middle-class boy, Cohen contended, he could not be indifferent to the middle-class norms because the middle-class norms were the norms of those who represented every part of our society and the achievement of the middle-class criteria could guarantee his respectable social class position in adulthood. However, the working-class children are conditioned to be at a disadvantage when meeting the middle-class criteria by two factors.

First, the working-class children are surrounded by cultural settings that do not exemplify the middle-class norms. The parents of working-class children possess less ambition for job and income than those of the middle-class do, and they do not emphasize the "planning" and "foresight" for the goals. Thus, asceticism and provision for the future are displaced by the principle of "good luck," and they pay little attention to learning opportunities. In contrast to the "ethic of individual responsibility" of the middle-class, they tend to apply the "ethic of reciprocity." Therefore, the working-class person is ready to ask for aid from others and draw on their resources without a feeling of guilt, and possess a sense of obligation to share one’s own resources with others. They are, also, less active at secondary, formal relationships than the middle-class people. They are not good at controlling emotion and are apt to express their aggression.

Secondly, the working-class children are unfavorable in terms of training grounds. The middle-class parents have aspiration for their children’s achievement of the middle-class norms; hence, their aspiration motivates children to meet what parents expect them to do. In contrast, working-class children are less likely to be influenced by parents’ expectation. Their socialization progresses more independently. Moreover, middle-class parents supply educational facilities like books and toys for their children. They always keep an eye on children’s activities and make an effort to control them. However, working-class children are less constrained in terms of parents’ control, hence, they are allowed to contact any peer group freely. The middle-class parents motivate their children to conform to their expectations by parental love, which is conditioned to be given to children only when children meet parents’ expectations. Accordingly, strongly motivated to conform to middle-class norms are the middle-class children who feel the loss of parental love when they fail to meet their parents’ expectations. In contrast, the working-class parents depend frequently on physical punishment rather than parental love. It does not have a lasting and strong effect on children, rather the working-class children is dependent on the expectations from their peer groups.

When the working-class children attempt to assimilate middle-class norms, Cohen said, they feel inferiority, resentment and hostility (Cohen, 112). The working-class child starts with a feeling of "shame" about his social class position. This feeling derives from recognizing that his parents are not successful in terms of an economy. They also observe that middle-class children attain respect and rewards from their parents and enjoy privileges that they can not afford. Despite the idea of "democracy" as a goal of school, the school encourages middle-class norms and evaluates students by middle-class standards. Cohen presented three reasons why status in the school should be measured by middle-class standards. First, the teacher is hired to teach the middle-class personalities, characteristics by the middle-class board of education and the middle-class parents. Second, the teacher himself almost comes from the middle-class. Third, since the teacher is much burdened by rigorous works, he prefers "good" children who are well-behaved, docile, and studious, hence less of a burden of his works. It is most likely that the working-class children are regarded as "problematic" children because they have not been trained to conform to requirements of the school. Failure in the school results in a loss of self-respect, and the working-class children suffer problems of adjustment.

Cohen said that the delinquent subculture signaled a solution to the problems of adjustment by providing the working-class children who could not meet the middle-class criteria with new status criteria that they could meet. This kind of status problem is influenced by the "status universe." Since in a democratic society there is the tendency to measure oneself against "all comers" people are motivated to elevate one’s status position. The status problem also depends on "status source." Most working-class children possess concern about the attitudes of the middle-class toward them. The working-class milieu is also culturally ambivalent; that is, there is no working-class milieu, which rejects the whole middle-class standards. Furthermore, even the working-class parents expect their children to be respectable in terms of middle-class standards. The degree that the working-class children internalize the middle-class standards affects the status problem. The working-class children internalize the middle-class standards in their living. They possess expectations for material success. In reality, however, they do not have enough substances for pursuit of those expectations. Thus, to the extent that he internalizes the middle-class values, they confront the problems of adjustment.

Cohen presented three alternatives to respond of the working-class children to the status problem. First, they can desert "the corner-boy" way of life for "the college-boy" way of life (Cohen, 128). Second alternative is "stable corner-boy response." The working-class children could accept the corner-boy way of life and make the best of the situation (Cohen, 128). Final alternative is the delinquent response. It represents a rejection of middle-class standards and standing on the opposite side. The delinquent subculture offers to the working-class children new norms, whereby they are no longer inferior to middle-class children, rather they are superior to them. The delinquent subculture functions as the legitimization of aggression. Hostility among working-class children against middle-class norms is not restrained because they desert the middle-class morality and choose the other. Thus, they can express freely aggression against the middle-class norms, which have caused them status-frustration. Cohen explained the working-class boys’ aggression by "reaction-formation" model. Though the working-class children adopted new norms, the norms that have been internalized once existed continually and pressed them for their recognition; this obscure situation induced anxiety. Cohen argued that the delinquent boy who had been socialized in a society dominated by middle-class norms reacted to the obscure situation by hostility in order to defend newly established norms. Cohen also said that if the delinquent subculture was to work well as a solution to the status problem, it should be adopted as a group solution (Cohen, 134). Whether delinquent boys are motivated to follow the new norms depends on the availability of their new norms as reference groups. In addition, if a delinquent boy is to perfect his solution to the status problem, he must reject other groups that do not share his subculture. Accordingly, the members become more dependent on their delinquent group, and they establish solidarity among the members.

Sykes and Matza criticized Cohen’s view that juvenile delinquency was a form of competing or countervailing values to respectful social norms. They contended that many delinquents experienced a sense of guilt or shame in opposition to Cohen’s argument (Sykes and Matza, 1957:664-665). They also said that the juvenile delinquents more frequently showed admiration and respect for law-abiding persons, and they often differentiated those who could be victimized from those who could not (Sykes and Matza, 1957:665). Furthermore, the juvenile delinquents could not entirely be free from the demands for conforming to social order. They contended that even the family engaged in illegal activities was likely to agree with dominant opinion that delinquency was wrong (Sykes and Matza, 1957:665). With these observations, they concluded that it was improbable to say that juvenile delinquency in a delinquent subculture was tantamount to a law-abiding behavior in a larger society. Then, why does a person violate the laws in which they believe? Matza and Sykes explained that individuals could avoid moral culpability for their criminal actions by justifications for deviance; that is, delinquents used several techniques for neutralizing the internal and external demands for conformity. They divided the techniques of neutralization into five types; the denial of responsibility; the denial of injury; the denial of the victim; the condemnation of the condemners; the appeal to higher loyalties.

To Matza and Sykes’s argument, Cohen responded that mechanism of reaction-formation described in "Delinquent Boys" could function as neutralization techniques. That is, delinquent boys, who had internalized the respectable value system, must contend with the demand for conformity; therefore, they should take the form of hostility against the norms of middle-class society in order to escape from the ambivalent situation (Cohen and Short, 1958:21).

Wilensky and Lebeaux (1958:197-207) also pointed out the limitations of Cohen’s theory. They said that there was not one delinquent subculture but a variety of delinquent subculture.

Responding to their criticism, Cohen developed various types of delinquent subcultures in the article, "Research in Delinquent Subcultures" (1958). The delinquent subculture in "Delinquent Boys" was renamed "parent male subculture" in this article. This subculture was the most common type in this country (Cohen and Short, 1958:24). The first variant subculture was the "conflict-oriented subculture," which was characterized by a relatively elaborate organization, internal division into sub-gangs and external involvement in gang alliances (Cohen and Short, 1958:25). The next one was the "drug-addict subculture. This subculture, in contrast to the parent and the conflict-oriented subcultures preferred utilitarian delinquency. However, this was only for maintaining the addict way of life (Cohen and Short, 1958:26). The third variant was the "semi-professional theft," which emerged after the age of sixteen or seventeen when the participation in the "parent subculture" grew weak. A minority began to move into more utilitarian and systemic crimes (Cohen and Short, 1958:27). Cohen also mentioned the "middle-class delinquent subculture" and the "female delinquent subculture," which had been described in "Delinquent Boys." The former, Cohen suggested, represented an attempt to exhibit masculine behavior because the middle-class boys, who were reared by mothers felt the need to enhance masculinity. The latter was concentrated on sexual crimes because the lower-class girls who had not been trained in a virtuous environment and could be identified primarily by the status of male felt status-frustration, and resolved this frustration by abandoning their reputation for chastity (Cohen and Short, 1958:34-35).

Kitsuse and Dietrick were concerned with the concept of "reaction-formation." Cohen assumed that the working-class boys cared about the middle-class status, and this generated the problem of adjustment. However, Kitsuse and Dietrick argued that the working-class boys did not strive for status in the middle-class system. The working-class boys resented when the school, which was irrelevant institution to them, attempted to impose upon them an irrelevant way of life (Kitsuse and Dietrick, 1959:210-212).

Many scholars and researchers have studied Cohen’s theory. Examined were several assumptions in Cohen’s theory about the adjustment problem of lower-class boys in school and the function of delinquency as an alternative solution to the status problem.

Harvey and Slatin (1975), after researching a sample of 96 elementary school teachers, concluded that a teacher’s expectations of a child’s performance in school was related to perceived socioeconomic status of the child. That is, a middle-class child is more often expected to perform well academically in school than a lower-class child does. They concluded that teachers’ identities were oriented to middle class in terms of class background and educational experience, and those identities had a strong influence on teachers’ expectation about students (Harvey and Slatin, 1975:157)). This study supports Cohen’s argument about "middle-class measuring rod," and subsequent lower-class boys’ maladjustment to middle-class standard.

According to Cohen’s theory, one of the solutions to the status problem is to reject a social group where the middle-standard is dominant. In relation to this, Elliott and Voss (1974) investigated the relationship between school dropout and delinquency. They found out that the dropouts had four times more police contact than the graduates did, and self-reports also showed similar results. The study revealed that the delinquency rates of dropouts were highest before leaving school and declined after dropping out. Furthermore, those dropouts who get married and employed after leaving school showed declining rates of delinquency. About predictive factors of delinquency and dropout, Elliott and Voss concluded that failure in school was more strongly related to delinquency than the other factors like self-esteem, feeling of isolation, alienation, and peer association (Elliott and Voss, 1974:169-171).

One of the most important concepts of Cohen’s theory is "status frustration." Lower-class children who can not meet the middle-class criteria feel status frustration, and they seek the other group that possesses a standard favorable to them. In relation to this, we can find many studies.

Gold and Mann (1972:468) found that those students who got lower grades showed higher rates of involvement in delinquency and the relationship between schoolgrades and delinquency was stronger among students who felt they were masculine. They also found that a student’s self-esteem was threatened by academic failure and delinquency provided appropriate means for raising the self-esteem for the students who performed poorly in school (Gold and Mann, 1972:471-472).

Bynner, O’Malley, and Bachman (1981) examined two hypotheses that low self-esteem increased delinquent behavior, and delinquent behavior raised self-esteem. They contended that while their data did not show the relationship between low self-esteem and an increase in delinquent behavior, the effect of restoring self-esteem occurred among teenagers low in self-esteem who took part in delinquent behavior (Bynner, O’Malley, and Bachman, 1981:429).

Kaplan (1980:149) found that those who experienced negative self-attitude was motivated to adopt deviant behavior toward reducing self-derogation. Furthermore, he argued that the relationship between self-derogation and subsequent adoption of deviance were stronger in lower socioeconomic stratum than in higher classes (Kaplan, 1980:149). He also observed the relationship between deviant behavior and self-enhancement. He found that the adoption of deviant responses reduced self-rejection attitudes among subjects (Kaplan, 1980:215).

Rosenberg and his associates (1989) examined the reciprocal relationship between self-esteem and three problems of youths: juvenile delinquency, poor school performance, and psychological depression. They found that low self-esteem resulted in delinquency and that delinquency enhanced self-esteem. The effects of self-esteem on academic performance were found, but the reverse was not. Self-esteem and depression were found to have a substantial effect on each other (Rosenberg, Schooler, and Schoenbach, 1989:1014).

Recently, Herrmann and McWhirter (1997) researched the relationship between self-concept and juvenile gang involvement. They argued that previous studies about the relationship between delinquency and self-concept could not be applied to gang members because "gang members" and "delinquent" were not the same concepts (1997:183). After researching 427 students coming from a lower socioeconomic status, they found that students who possessed lower self-concept on the competence, academic, family etc were more involved in gang activity that other students with high self-concept (1997:190).