Week 2: Learning and Subcultural Theories
For your opening post, answer ONE of the following questions. Include any lingering questions you have about the learning or subcultural readings and lecture or include a question for your peers to help them think through the material more deeply. Cite your sources.
Personal experiences are permitted, as long as you answer the question prompts.
1.Find/search information about a crime- or violence-prevention program that appears to be based on the tenets of Akers’s social learning theory. Describe the program, and explain why it is consistent with social learning theory. Be specific. Justify your response in some detail. Make an argument, provide evidence, and cite your sources.
2. Suppose you are describing to your friend Sutherland’s theory, and that friend, on hearing the principles of differential association, says, “There is no way that theory is valid. If it were valid, everyone who worked with offenders in prisons, jails, or treatment centers should become criminal.” Do you agree with this friend’s interpretation of the theory? Be specific. Justify your response in some detail. Make an argument, provide evidence, and cite your sources.
3.Find information online about a crime- or violence-prevention program that appears to be based on the ideas of Anderson’s code of the streets. Describe the program, and explain why it is consistent with Anderson’s research. Be specific. Justify your response in some detail. Make an argument, provide evidence, and cite your sources.
4.Apply social learning theory to your own life. More specifically, explain how you learned noncriminal behavior using the theory’s key concepts and propositions. Be specific. Justify your response in some detail. Make an argument, provide evidence, and cite your sources.
5. Many violence-prevention programs overlap with social learning theories. Visit the web-based description of the model school-based Olweus Bullying Prevention Program at https://www.blueprintsprograms.org/programs/olweus-bullying-prevention-program/Links to an external site.. Describe the program, and explain the compatibility between the program and social learning theory. Be specific. Justify your response in some detail. Make an argument, provide evidence, and cite your sources.
6.Many violence-prevention programs overlap with social learning theories. Visit the web-based description of the model program Lifeskills Training at https://www.blueprintsprograms.org/programs/lifeskills-training-lst/Links to an external site.. Describe the program, and explain the compatibility between the program and social learning theory. Be specific. Justify your response in some detail. Make an argument, provide evidence, and cite your sources.
