Differential Opportunity Structure

Differential Opportunity Structure Definition

Differential opportunity structure is the idea, coined by Richard A. Cloward and Lloyd B. Ohlin in Delinquency and Opportunity (1960), that opportunities to become delinquent — like legitimate opportunities — are unevenly distributed across society.

Improving on Merton

The concept was a creative attempt to strengthen Robert K. Merton’s theory of anomie by combining it with Edwin H. Sutherland and Donald Cressey’s work on delinquent subcultures and differential association. Merton had explained one form of deviance — “innovation” — as the response of people fully socialised into the desire for material success who are denied access to legitimate means of achieving it, and who therefore turn to illegitimate means. This account quietly assumed that illegitimate means were freely available to all. Cloward and Ohlin’s phrase draws attention to what Merton overlooked: access to criminal opportunities is itself structured and unequal.

Significance

By linking Mertonian anomie theory to the Chicago School tradition of cultural transmission and differential association, Cloward and Ohlin produced a general theory of delinquent subcultures grounded in differential opportunities for crime. The concept is closely related to the broader notion of opportunity structure.