Walter Miller

Miller’s Focal Concerns?

  • In contrast to both Cohen and Cloward and Ohlin, Miller suggests that the subcultural norms and values of the working class are not a reaction to blocked opportunities

  • Working-class has developed an independent set of norms and values for mainstream society through which they gain status

  • This status is based upon satisfying the ‘focal concerns’ of typically working-class males

Miller’s Focal Concerns:

  • Miller identified six focal concerns of working-class males

    1. Excitement

    2. Toughness

    3. Smartness

    4. Trouble

    5. Autonomy

    6. Fate

  • These focal concerns led the working class to deviate as they contrasted with the norms and values of mainstream society

Excitement:

  • According to Miller, working-class males are seen to crave excitement in their leisure time

  • This was demonstrated through drinking alcohol and recreational drug usage, sexual encounters and fighting

  • Evidence: Behaviour in city centres and local communities

Toughness:

  • Toughness is associated with the working class as status is awkward for displaying masculine characteristics such as strength or the ability to beat an opponent in a fight

  • This led to criminal acts such as assault and bodily harm due to the need to ‘not back down’ in conflict situations

  • Evidence through higher levels of conviction for working-class males for violent crimes

Smartness:

  • Smartness refers to the ability to outwit others- through gambling and gaming

  • Lower-level fraud and ‘con’ tricks allow working-class males to assert their smartness over unwitting victims

  • This is evidenced through humour or verbal responses as well

  • Participation in sports betting, gambling machines and casinos

Trouble:

  • Working-class individuals were always aware that their values might lead them into trouble and were unlikely to back down from it

  • Linked to subcultural values of fatalism and collectivism, working-class males accepted that they needed to support their friends and family in times of conflict

  • Linked to subcultural behaviours in schools, with collectivism evident in anti-school subcultures

Autonomy:

  • Anti-authority views of working-class males led to them dealing with issues themselves rather than alerting authorities

  • Retribution for being ‘wronged’ was dealt with by individuals rather than the police

  • Lower levels of reporting incidents in working-class areas and reluctance to inform others who have committed crime

Fate:

  • Working-class males have fatalistic attitudes which lead them to believe that they have little agency in life

  • The behaviour of working-class males is not moderated by what may happen in the future- actions today do not impact the future as it is already decided

  • Evidenced in education- links to Willis’s learning to labour- and fatalistic attitudes towards university- Archer, Reay

Evaluations of Miller’s focal concerns:

  • Influenced ideas of an ‘underclass’ that were developed by Charles Murray and the New Right

  • The assumption that working-class values are subcultural- Marxists would suggest this is only the case because of ruling-class control of social institutions

  • Focal concerns are based on the behaviour of males and are deterministic in nature