Robert K. Merton

What is anomie and how does it lead to deviance?

What is anomie and how does it lead to deviance?

Merton's last seminal work was in the pattern of the theoretical part, "Social Structure and Anomie," published in the American Sociological Review (1938). In it, he sought an interpretation for deviant demeanour through an explication and refinement of Durkheim's beginning of anomie. It is not our purpose to encompass in this publication on theories of society the more specialized forms of theoretical sociology. However, this interpretation of deviance is centralised first of all at the societal level. (Durkheim, 1997)

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