A test of Merton’s anomie theory The case of Ahvaz male high school students

Document Type : علمی وپزوهشی

Authors

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is testing Merton’s Anomie theory (1968). It is focused on some key concepts in Merton’s anomie theory, which researchers pay less attention to them. We have extracted eight hypotheses from Anomie theory and attempted to test among a sample of male adolescences in Ahvaz South of Iran.
We surveyed a sample of 480 male students in nine high schools to gather needed data using a self-report questionnaire. The questionnaire measured objective and subjective socioeconomic status, relative deprivation, and aspirations, perceived opportunities, the gap between aspirations and perceived opportunities and finally feeling of anomie. Results show that socioeconomic status- in both dimensions- is significantly correlated with feeling of anomie, but its effect in regression equation on feeling of anomie is insignificant. Our findings suggest that SES has an indirect effect via aspiration-opportunity gap and relative deprivation on feeling of anomie. The effect of relative deprivation is significant which is affected by aspiration-opportunity gap. Step by step regression shows that aspiration-opportunity gap, perceived opportunity and relative deprivation have greatest effect on feeling of anomie, respectively. The effect of other variables seems unimportant. Our theoretical model is tested by standardized regression coefficient (path analysis). Also, we found significant relationships between each gaps per aspiration and perceived opportunity. This is the first comprehensive study to test Merton’s Anomie theory in Iran. According to the logic of Merton’s theory, aspiration-opportunity gaps can be extended beyond the purely economic dimensions.

Keywords

References

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Sociological Review
Volume 21, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1
Spring & Summer
April 2014
Pages 147-181

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