Test Bank

Chapter 5: Social Disorganization Theory

Multiple Choice

1. Social disorganization theory is a macro-level theory, which means it focuses on ______.

a. the individual

b. small groups

c. the big picture

d. mental health

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Introduction

Difficulty Level: Medium

2. In which U.S. city did the early works of social disorganization theory take place?

a. Chicago

b. St. Louis

c. Los Angeles

d. New York City

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Development of Social Disorganization Theory

Difficulty Level: Easy

3. Social disorganization theories tend to focus on which of the following?

a. rural residents

b. juvenile delinquents

c. adult career offenders

d. deviant parents

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Development of Social Disorganization Theory

Difficulty Level: Easy

4. Social disorganization theory researchers ______ suggested that delinquency is not randomly distributed across neighborhoods.

a. Sutherland and Cressey

b. Shaw and McKay

c. Cloward and Ohlin

d. Hirschi and Gottfredson

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Shaw and McKay’s Study of Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas

Difficulty Level: Easy

5. In which of the following ways can social disorganization theories be used to study neighborhoods and communities?

a. researching learning styles of children

b. examining case studies of life course criminal records

c. mapping and plotting home addresses of delinquents using zones

d. identifying juvenile offenders at high risk for maturing into adult offenders

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Shaw and McKay’s Study of Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas

Difficulty Level: Medium

6. Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay were NOT concerned with boys ______ when they plotted on maps the home addresses of juveniles.

a. brought to court for an alleged delinquent activity

b. committed by the court to a correctional facility

c. dealt with by the police probation officers

d. uninvolved with the criminal justice system who admitted to delinquent acts

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Shaw and McKay’s Study of Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas

Difficulty Level: Difficult

7. Which zone is in the middle, according to concentric zone theory?

a. central business district

b. ex-urbs

c. a zone of transition

d. the melting pot zone

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Shaw and McKay’s Study of Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas

Difficulty Level: Medium

8. Parental ______ involves parents’ ability to control their children’s behavior through parent–child attachment, rules, supervision, as well as social support.

a. transmission

b. efficacy

c. cohesion

d. discipline

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Collective Efficacy as a Key Theoretical and Empirical Element of Social Disorganization Theory

Difficulty Level: Easy

9. ______ programs are examples of policy implications consistent with social disorganization theories.

a. Eugenics

b. Neighborhood watch

c. Criminal justice

d. Corrections/rehabilitation

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Ideas in Action: Programs and Policy From Social Disorganization and Broken Windows Perspectives

Difficulty Level: Medium

10. In social disorganization research, ______ variables typically come from the census and include measures for residential instability, concentrated disadvantage, and population age structure.

a. social

b. individual-level

c. structural

d. disorganization

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Collective Efficacy as a Key Theoretical and Empirical Element of Social Disorganization Theory

Difficulty Level: Hard

11. How are social disorganization theories fundamentally different from previous theories of crime and deviance?

a. Social disorganization focuses on types of places; previous theories focused on types of people.

b. Social disorganization focuses on individuals; previous theories focused on groups.

c. Social disorganization focuses on culture; previous theories focused on social psychology.

d. Social disorganization focuses on families; previous theories focused on individuals.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Development of Social Disorganization Theory

Difficulty Level: Hard

12. ______ influenced Chicago-area sociologists studying crime to focus on environmental factors rather than free will and the role of the government in controlling free will.

a. Social Sources of Delinquency

b. The Chicago Tribune

c. Hoop Dreams

d. Origins of the Species

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Development of Social Disorganization Theory

Difficulty Level: Hard

13. What was a primary component of the Chicago school approach to studying crime and deviance?

a. gang violence

b. mapping

c. feminism

d. positivism

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Development of Social Disorganization Theory

Difficulty Level: Hard

14. What served as the theoretical basis for Shaw and McKay’s (1942/1969) Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas?

a. relative deprivation

b. soft deviance

c. human ecology approach

d. subculture theory

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Shaw and McKay’s Study of Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas

Difficulty Level: Hard

15. Shaw and McKay highlighted three factors that characterized neighborhoods with high rates of delinquency: racial/ethnic heterogeneity, population turnover, and ______.

a. racism

b. poverty

c. high juvenile population

d. high male-to-female ratio

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Shaw and McKay’s Study of Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas

Difficulty Level: Easy

16. Which of the following did Bursik and Grasmick (1993) identify as having both an indirect effect, as well as a statistically significant and robust direct effect, on crime?

a. racial heterogeneity

b. ethnic heterogeneity

c. population instability

d. economic deprivation

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Empirical Tests of Social Disorganization Theory

Difficulty Level: Medium

17. According to Sampson and Groves (1989), which of the following mediating factors explained the connection between social structural variables and crime identified by Shaw and McKay?

a. unsupervised teenagers

b. economic deprivation

c. population turnover

d. ethnic diversity

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Empirical Tests of Social Disorganization Theory

Difficulty Level: Medium

18. What suggests that Sampson and Groves’ (1989) model was generalizable across time?

a. Their data were longitudinal.

b. follow-up studies

c. Their data were cross-sectional.

d. additional mediating variables

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Empirical Tests of Social Disorganization Theory

Difficulty Level: Medium

19. Which of the following is an example of collective efficacy as defined by Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls (1997)?

a. social support among family members

b. the ability of an individual to accomplish a specific task

c. a neighborhood’s ability to recognize common goals

d. mediating factors and structural factors

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Collective Efficacy as a Key Theoretical and Empirical Element of Social Disorganization Theory

Difficulty Level: Medium

20. What have efforts to test social disorganization theory at the neighborhood level in other countries revealed?

a. The theory may rely too heavily on data drawn from official crime statistics.

b. The theory is most useful for explaining crime, not “soft deviance.”

c. The theory is most useful for explaining deviant behavior in wealthy countries.

d. The theory may explain levels of deviant behavior outside the United States.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Global Perspectives on Social Disorganization Theory

Difficulty Level: Hard

True/False

1. Broken Windows Theory developed in opposition to Social Disorganization Theory.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Ideas in Action: Programs and Policy From Social Disorganization and Broken Windows Perspectives

Difficulty Level: Easy

2. Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay found that rates of delinquency were highest in the zone most distant from the central business districts.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Shaw and McKay’s Study of Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas

Difficulty Level: Medium

3. Social disorganization theories tend to focus on groups and places rather than individuals.

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Development of Social Disorganization Theory

Difficulty Level: Medium

4. According to Ruth Kornhauser’s approach to social disorganization theory, neighborhoods characterized by poverty, population turnover, and racial/ethnic heterogeneity cannot control their environments and achieve common goals.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Rebirth of Social Disorganization Theory

Difficulty Level: Medium

5. Social disorganization research has not yet included self-report surveys.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Rebirth of Social Disorganization Theory

Difficulty Level: Easy

6. Social disorganization theory and broken windows theory both consider images of crime and disorder in the neighborhood important for understanding crime and deviance.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: More Theoretical and Empirical Advances and Divergences

Difficulty Level: Hard

7. Kornhauser focused on the subculture found in socially disorganized neighborhoods and paid little attention to the structural aspects of the theory.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Rebirth of Social Disorganization Theory

Difficulty Level: Easy

8. Research testing social disorganization theory has found that it explains crime and deviance in both metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Deviance and Disparity: Social Responsibility Theory

Difficulty Level: Hard

9. Policies and programs related to broken windows theory generally focus on stopping

high-level criminal activity after it escalates.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: More Theoretical and Empirical Advances and Divergences

Difficulty Level: Easy

10. Collective efficacy serves an important mediating effect between structural factors associated with social disorganization and deviant behaviors such as violence.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Collective Efficacy as a Key Theoretical and Empirical Element of Social Disorganization Theory

Difficulty Level: Medium

Essay

1. Outline Sampson and Groves’ model of social disorganization.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Empirical Tests of Social Disorganization Theory

Difficulty Level: Hard

2. Crime rates in a major U.S. city appear to be located in particular neighborhoods closer to the city center. What are some important aspects a researcher would want to consider in choosing to examine the social disorder of neighborhoods and crime throughout the city? Explain why this is important to examine through social disorganization theory.

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Development of Social Disorganization Theory

Difficulty Level: Medium

3. Wilson and Kelling (1982) published an essay titled “Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety.” Explain the basic premise of this article as it relates to the study of crime and deviance, as well as a brief statement of the policy implication for police.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: More Theoretical and Empirical Advances and Divergences

Difficulty Level: Difficult

4. What are some common critiques of Social Disorganization Theory?

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Early Critiques of Social Disorganization Theory

Difficulty Level: Hard

5. Describe how restricted access and forced mobility contribute to the social disorganization of neighborhoods.

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: External Forces in the Creation of Social Disorganization

Difficulty Level: Medium