Research from the 1900s

With the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization in the 1920s and 1930s, sociologists began to pay attention to the diverse cultural and economic groups in large cities. Robert Ezra Park says in his paper that a city is rather an "institution consisting of a concept and a structure". He calls for attention upon the "segregated city areas" and these sub-social groups therein. In Edwin Sutherland"s Principles of Sociology, "subculture" is employed to describe the specific values and norms in delinquent groups related to their behavior like drug use, extortion and fraud.