What is the relationship between gang affiliation and socioeconomic status? What

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What is the relationship between gang affiliation and socioeconomic status? What research method would you use to discover this relationship? Why would you use that method? How does Gestalt psychology affect the field of psychology today? How did it differ greatly from structuralism and functionalism? What are the biggest differences between psychodynamic and humanistic perspectives in psychology? What is the biggest strength of an experiment when you compare it to every other research method? Why do you have to hide the purpose of your experiment to your research subjects on occasion? Why are ethics so important when it comes to doing research with animals or humans? Give some examples of research that was not done ethically?

Explanation / Answer

What is the relationship between gang affiliation and socio-economic status? What research method would you use to discover this relationship?

Youth gangs pose a serious challenge to communities. National Council on Crime and Delinquency – identified in a self-report survey study that certain section of urban youth are at high risk of joining such gangs. Among the many factor that increase the risk of joining gang among youth family background is one of the critical factor. Particularly in category of family the broken family, low socioeconomic status have been identified to be positively related to gang membership. Moreover residing in a disadvantaged neighbourhood and easy access to drugs in neighbourhood also increase the likelihood of a person joining the gang.

In another study Browneld, Sorenson and Thompson examined the chances of being arrested in relation to gang membership, race and social class irrespective of delinquent behaviours. They framed their theoretical prediction based upon the concepts of group hazard and master status. The hypothesis of group hazard assumes that group nature of delinquency was associated with higher chances of a youth being arrested. Master status theory proposes that a person’s master status based upon his/her race and social class was associated with risk of being arrested. The researcher in this study used self-report data youth gangs in Seattle area. The, y found that while being a part of delinquents group (gang) did not pose the risk of being arrested any more that not being a part of a gang, being low social class and black significantly increased one’s risk of being arrested independently from delinquent behaviour.

Therefore, the above indicates that being from a lower social class is associated with both higher risk of gang membership as well as higher risk of being arrested due to master status. Master status was originally proposed by Hughes (1945) arguing that person’s social class powerfully constraints the attributes assigned to them by others.

Research methods – It has already been established that lower social class and being black are associated with gang affiliation. We can add to this existing knowledge and understanding of differential likelihood of gang affiliation based on socio-economic status with the next question asking –

Within a particular it is social-class what differentiates those who become gang members and those who do not join any gang.

Design – We can study this using an ethnographic field study without assuming any hypothesis wherein a randomly chosen sample of 20 youths in the age group of 15-18 years of age within a same community of poor with majority of blacks will be closely observed and tracked over a period of three years.

Data -These subjects will be profiled in terms of socio-economic variables like social class, race, parental occupation, and education level.. Also further understanding will be developed with interviews with the family members of these youths and also community informants. Wherever possible the subjects themselves also may be interviewed directly to elicit information about what their past actions related to gang affiliations any and the reasons or factors of attraction.

Theory (hypothesis) development - After a significant amount of information is collected it is analysed for identification of patterns about the specific reasons (causes) that triggers and maintains their gang associations and also carefully observing if the same factors are absent in cases of youth who don’t participate in similar gang activities. This would provide for useful hypothesis to be tested in separate research using a different community to establish their generalizability.

Reference -

Brownfield, D., Sorenson, A. M., & Thompson, K. M. (2001). Gang membership, race, and social class: A test of the group hazard and master status hypotheses. Deviant Behavior, 22(1), 73-89.

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