抄録
While Merton focuses on a society that is markedly different from that of Durkheim's France, there is a common tendency in their anomie theory to conceive of an “atomistic” and “individualistic” actor.
But in modern societies, the industrial bureaucracy, not the small independent business, has increased importance as a source of mobility, and the aspirations to become self-employed has lost some of its meaning with the growth of large-scale organization. Then the stress of recent theories in the anomie tradition is more on the “organization” man, especially modification of views concerning the boy's aspirations in this age is requred. For instance, although Merton forcuses on “pecuniary succes”, in resent theories aspiration level is measured by educational aspiration because educational achievement is the main source of occupational achievement in a bureaucratized industrial society.
Yet despite this modification, recent theories of deviant behavior, including Cloward's addition of illegitimate means and opportunity structure, still conceive in terms of the S S & A paradigm and expect that boys who retain high aspirations despite perceptions of opportunities as closed will experience the greatest pressure toward deviance and, therefore, should be the most delinquent. But Short's contradictory findings have suggested that high aspirations may indicate identification with conventional values and institutional norms.
To resolve this contradiction, we must recognize that the aspiration of adolescents is not unidimensional. At least it must be taken account of two kinds of distinctions : first, their aspirations have different attributes, such as improvement in material goods or income on the one hand and in an educational achivement or status on the other ; second, two dimensions are differentiated-realistic or condition-bound and ideal or condition-free. These two kinds of distrinctions generate, by cross tabulation, a typology of four logically possible patterns of aspiration ; (1) ideal-material aspiration (2) ideal-status aspiration (3) realistic-material aspiration (4) realistic-status aspiration. Concerning the first type aspiration, S S & A paradigm is supported, but the other types do not fit, in paticular, the fourth type aspiration is the case in which Short's findings are confirmed. In terms of this typology, we shall reconsider the specific nature of success in anomie theory.
