the community construction of the underage drinker

Author: Vander Ven, Thomas¹

Source: Deviant Behavior, Volume 26, Number 1, January-February 2005 , pp. 63-83(21)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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Abstract:

“Community” is one of the most popular solutions to crime and delinquency problems in America today. But what is meant by “community” and what is its function? One function of a community is to form coalitions through which definitional processes of local problems and the construction of putative “people-types” (Loseke 1993) are accomplished. In this paper, I examine rhetoric at a series of community hearings on a local underage drinking problem in a rural, Midwestern county. Based on testimonies given at the hearing, three underage drinking people-types are discussed: the Sad Alien, the Uninformed Child, and the Artful Dodger. These people-types are used by social problems workers as resources to defend and legitimate their roles in existing strategies to reduce underage drinking and to authenticate and reproduce lines of programmatic action.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1080/01639620590518951

Affiliations: 1: Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, USA

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