What do Structuralists, like Levi-Strauss, Barthes etc. think about crime and deviance?

Question

Are there any decent academic websites that could help? I need to apply the structuralist theory to the issue of crime and deviance.

Thanks if you can help :)

Answer 1

Here are just three useful sites for some background info and to glean concomitant structuralist theories:

www.heartfield.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/le...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi_Strauss

www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/s_z/st...

Other than these, Google Scholar is also useful. Also, for identifying pertinent points and to cut out adverts etc., place words, e.g. "Levi-Strauss, structuralist issues" in quote marks.

Best of luck with studies...

Answer 2

It's a standard format.

Structuralist (in my day called structural functionalist) theory basically means the school of thought that believes we NEED it, whatever "it" is. In your case it's crime and deviance.

Hence Structuralist theory says we NEED crime and deviance to maintain our society.

However the structuralist slant is always that we are trying to maintain the status quo, and maintaining the stratification of society, rather than changing society.

Crime has a wide impact on society, from illegal money-making schemes which ultimately filter the profits up to the rich (poor people in general do not have better lives through the proceeds of crime), to generating the excuse that we need more police powers to "clamp down" on criminals and deviants.

I'm sure you know that there's a big difference between understanding sociology, and getting a good grade in sociology - unfortunately you have to quote names, dates, and places; so my advice above may (or may not) be of interest to you, of assist in your insight, or whatever, but you will have to provide your answer with actual quotations from the named sociologists to get a good mark for you essay.

I'm sure you can search using Google or similar, using your key words, to get some material which you can quote from.