The learning objective of this session are listed below:

1. Understanding the process of theory invention and elaboration;
2. Understanding the emergence of symbolic interactionist (the Chicago School) theories in sociology, and their associations with criminology and learning theory;
3. Understanding the emergence of learning theories in criminology, as well as its history of development;
4. Conducting inductive and deductive analysis of the learning theory; comparing different portions of the theory and understanding their internal and external realtionships;
5. Be able to build your own intellectual framework in your studies of crime.

Grading & Assessements:

1. Commments and Discussion 35% 
2. Response to Designed Questions 25%
3. Peer Reviewed Project 20% (See the last section)
4. Reaction Paper 20% (student needs to choose a topic most interests him/her in learning theories and write another 5-10 pages short article for the topic; 15 academic resources are required)
   

   CRCJ 9220 Final Paper Requirements (Students)

    

As the video suggested, the three central ideas of symbolic interactionism are:

1. Actions depending upon meaning;
2. Different people assign different meanings on things;
3. The meaning of things can change;

Stop & Think
How can you use the symbolic interaction theory in sociology to explain crimes?

9 Principles of Edwin Sutherland's Different Association Theory:

1. ​Criminal behavior is learned.
2. Criminal behavior is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of communication.
3. The principal part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs within intimate personal groups.
4. When criminal behavior is learned, the learning includes (a) techniques of committing the crime, which are sometimes very complicated, sometimes simple; (b) the specific direction of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes.
5. The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from definitions of the legal codes as favorable or unfavorable.
6. A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of the law.
7. Differential associations may vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity.
8. The process of learning criminal behavior by association with criminal and anti-criminal patterns involves all of the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning.
9. While criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and values, it is not explained by those needs and values, since non-criminal behavior is an expression of the same needs and values.

Sutherland, E. H., & Cressey, D. R. (1978). Criminology. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott.

Stop & Think
In your opinion, what's the relationship between the symbolic interaction theory and Sutherland's Different Association Theory?

Watch the YouTube video (ignore the portion after 6:56) and review the social learning theory (please read A Differential Association-Reinforcement Theory of Criminal Behavior) first.

[Screenshot: Burgess, R. L., & Akers, R. L.. (1966). A Differential Association-Reinforcement Theory of Criminal Behavior. Social Problems, 14(2), 128–147.]

Stop & Think
Think about how the Different Association Theory of Crime and the Social Learning Theory in Criminology are associated? ​

*According to Akers' SSSL theory, social Structure has indirect effects on social learning:

1. society community;
2. Age/Gender/Class/Race;
3. Social Disorganization Conflict;
4. Family/Peer/School/Others

*Therefore, the paradigm of the SLSS is: 

Social Structure→Social Learning→Behavioral Outcomes

[Akers, R. (1998). Social learning and social structure : A general theory of crime and deviance. Boston: Northeastern University Press.]

Stop & Think
Think about this new learning theory of crimes:
*How it different from the former version?
​*How do you understand and evaluate it? 

Education or criminology is not the only discipline in social or human sciences that talks about behaviors. In sociology, some scholars prefer to use the social-behavior paradigm to analyze the subjective matters of our daily interpersonal interactions. In economics, some researchers are obsessed with exploiting the utility of cost-benefit analysis to predict future responses of different individual actors. Despite the fact that the golden era of behaviorism has become a part of history, researchers have never stopped their efforts to uncover the nature of human behaviors. Although in many cases, I would not agree to simply treat behaviors as behaviors, since they can be studied as social phenomena as well, but I’m very interested in learning about the motivation-causation studies of certain human behaviors, such as “crimes” (violence, deviance) & learning...

After watching this video, what similarities and differences do you see between the social learning theory of crime and behaviorism?
​
Please pay special attention to the following terminologies: 
*Classical Conditioning
​*Operant  Conditioning
*Reinforcement

Did not get it??? I totally understand that...
Here is a more concise YouTube video in Social Cognitive Theory...

Please take notes on this video (if you don't have background in psychology), because it's very important for you to obtain a general understanding of the social-cognitive theory in learning and aggression.....

As the video suggested, the 4 basic assumptions of the social cognitive learning theory are:

​1. People learn by observing others;
2. Internal process that may or may not lead to behavior;
3. Goal-Directed Behavior;
4. Behavior eventually becomes self-regulated.

Stop & Think

*What differentiates it from behaviorism?
*What similarities and differences do you see between social-cognitivism and the social learning theory of crime?

Simply speaking, the social learning theories in criminology were adapted from both paradigms in sociology and psychology/education; it suggests that individuals learn behaviors from their outside environment and that our social status largely affects what we are going to learn (or say, how we will be socialized), and what we learn from the environment will thus determine our behaviors. For instance, a poor kid from a socially disorganized neighborhood is more likely to engage in gang activities and has contacts with gang members; therefore, they are more likely to “learn crimes”.  How? If s/he learned crimes and used crimes as the tool to gain certain benefits (such as money and personal property), then we can say that s/he is rewarded by criminal behaviors; therefore, s/he is more likely to repeat criminal and antisocial behaviors in the future. Obviously, this is a typical theory that is based on the assumption in behaviorism, but a major difference is that the learning theory of crime also takes social/structural factors into consideration.

Therefore, the question is, how do you evaluate the social structure-social learning theory in criminology? (Complete a survey here first)

[Hints]:

*Is it an outdated behaviorist theory, or does it still have fruitful utilities?

*What’s the nature of the social structure-social learning theory, behaviorism, social-cognitivism, or otherwise? (Think about their paradigms)

You are required to write a concise paper on this topic, and the article needs to include 10 academic references. You are also required to address all the issues/questions mentioned in this section. The rubric for peer review is attached down below:

CRCJ 9220 Rubric for Peer-Reviewed Project

CRCJ 9220 Peer-Reviewed Project Rubric (Preview)