NCJ Number
195237
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Education Volume: 13 Issue: 1 Dated: Spring 2002 Pages: 25-34
Date Published
2002
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This "tongue in cheek" paper uses the "Nacirema" heuristic initially employed by Horace Miner (1956) to challenge undergraduate criminology and criminal justice students to better understand theories by applying them not only to criminals, but also to some of their more deviant peers.
Abstract
"Nacirema" is "American" spelled backwards and was used by Miner with an accompanying vocabulary of English words spelled backward to analyze American cultural practices from the outside looking in. This is a tool to facilitate a more objective analysis of what is happening in American culture. In the current paper, the Nacirema device is used to explore theories of collegiate undergraduate deviance. Undergraduate deviance is defined as attending few classes, sleeping a lot, daydreaming, performing at low levels of achievement, and cheating to attempt to gain the symbols of academic achievement without actually performing the work. Some Nacirema students cultivate anti-intellectual attitudes and values that enforce a code of silence and impose sanctions on those who violate these norms, described in Nacirema terms as "Renosirp" (prisoner) rules. These rules may include "don't be smart;" "don't ask questions;" "don't answer questions;" "do your own time;" "don't trust the guards;" and "don't snitch." Criminological theory offers one approach to explaining the curious paradox in which students resist and/or reject intellectual elements of college while drifting toward norms that describe the student as deviant. Theories of subculture, strain, social control, and differential association provide useful concepts in understanding how "normal" Nacirema students become deviants to academic expectations and norms. 15 references