Student Misconduct and Strain Theory

Introduction

Academic dishonesty or misconduct is a persistent problem among American college students. Despite the fact that this is not a new practice, nobody only associates it with present American schooling. Alarm should be raised about the prevalence of academic dishonesty on American university campuses. To be more specific, the persistence of such deviance points to the challenge of societal management of this specific problematic behavior. Without a doubt, the issue’s pervasiveness may be the basis to consider it a collegiate tradition rather than a rebellion against authority. However, a number of research show a connection between academic misconduct and other deviance, such as exam cheating. Despite any rationalizations, plagiarism or intellectual theft is a dangerous activity for any set of educational system that is competitive. For those who obey the rules are configured to be disadvantaged. In fact, this vice can lead unfairly to the distribution of resources like social rewards that are earned through a competitive process.

Social Strain Theory

American sociologist Merton developed the social strain. This story shows that at some point in life, social structures may pressure people to partake criminal activities. According to Merton, the strain is structured, which discusses the process of the societal level. It effects and filters how people think about desires. Also, the term may refer to an individual’s pain and friction to meet personal ways and needs. This kind of strain insinuates social structures in the society that pressures people to a level of being criminals. Following, the above illustrations, it is clear that this theory is not appropriate to apply in the academic world, insofar as capping exam cheating is concerned because of the following reasons.

General Strain Theory

Evidence suggests that people with criminal peers have high chances of committing crimes when they undergo strain as compared to children with fewer criminal peers. Agnew’s states other factors of GST as immoral surviving, which occurs when people go through conditions where the cost of crimes is a little bit low, and the merits very high. According to Agnew (2006), individuals are under pressure to undertake an illegal activity like cheating exams through strains they go through. Because of these stories, students work through negative feelings such as frustration, fury, or depression. However, lack of resources helps one to cope strain with the help of predisposed or legal means to participate in the crime, and then students have high chances of alleviating undesirable feelings through exam misconduct.

Self-Complexity

Mathews (2011) adds more information on Agnew’s study by expounding on self-complexity in a bid to give more knowledge on why some people reply to strain with the crime. Self-complexity is the identities or roles vital to someone and how characters or roles differ from one another (Mathews, 2011). According to Mathews (2011), people with lower SC, or the ones with few, functions together with significant overlaps. The aspect regards to how one perceives these obligations, which are more to prone to strain since the bad emotions that associates with negative or failure event may end up spilling over into the tightly intertwined identities or roles (Mathews, 2011).

Conclusion

In conclusion, academic cheating is a pervasive process in colleges in America. However, it leads to unfair competition, hence disadvantaging students who work hard. The use of social strain theory is not the best way to tackle the plagiarism issue.

Reference

Agnew, R., & White, H. (1992). An empirical test of general strain theory. Criminology, 30, 475-499.

Matthews, S. K. (2011). Self-complexity and crime: Extending General Strain Theory. Justice Quarterly, 28(6), 863-902