Delinquency, Opportunity, and Gender

Abstract

The role of blocked or limited opportunity has commanded considerable attention in the sociological analysis of juvenile delinquency. The typical stance taken is that many juveniles are pushed into delinquency because they lack access to those opportunities which are defined as legitimate avenues for the realization of a relatively universal set of success goals. Those who are denied the opportunity to implement these socially approved means often turn to delinquency as an alternative or more expedient way of reaching desired goals or as a means of striking back at what is defined as an unfair system.' For the most part, the importance of adolescent aspirations and expectations, as well as the relative availability of the institutionalized means for realizing personal goals, has been developed mainly with reference to their etiological role in male delinquency. The potential utility of such variables in accounting for female misbehavior, by contrast, has been largely ignored. Primarily, this appears to be a function of the view that the aspirations and expectations of adolescent females, in comparison to those of their male counterparts, are quite circumscribed, not only in quantity, but also in content. That is, while males are conceived as strivers, preoccupied with short and long-term status and economic success, the female adolescent is more often viewed as possessing no such aspirations and, instead, is satisfied to occupy a role dependent to the male, basking in whatever attendant status her partner's relative success confers. Coleman2 presented the most popular and classic conception of this with his contention that the greatest status enhancement for girls is in dating the right boys. The implication is that while boys have a variety of actual and potential roles as sources of achievement and status, girls have relatively little in the way of alternatives to the popularity with the opposite sex role.3 As a result, and to the extent that female aspirations and expectations have been examined at all in connection with