Breaking down the question
The statement to be explained is that anomie is rooted in social structure — that is, it is not a matter of individual pathology or weak character, but a strain produced by the way society itself is organised. The instruction to explain "with reference to R.K. Merton's contribution" tells you exactly whose theory to centre.
Merton's decisive move, set out in his functions and reference groups work, was to relocate anomie from Durkheim's account of normlessness to a specific structural source: the mismatch between culturally prescribed goals and the socially distributed means of achieving them.
At 10 marks, the priority is a precise statement of the goals–means disjunction and its consequences, with a brief nod to Durkheim and a short critical note.
How to approach it
Open by distinguishing Durkheim's original concept of anomie as normlessness from Merton's reworking of it as structural strain, so the examiner sees you know the lineage.
Then set out Merton's core argument: societies define success goals and legitimate means, and when the social structure denies certain groups access to the means while the culture urges the goals on everyone, strain results. This is why anomie is structural, not individual.
Finish with the five modes of adaptation, at least named, and a compact critical assessment.
Model answer
The claim that anomie is rooted in social structure is precisely the insight that Robert K. Merton contributed to the sociology of deviance. Where earlier explanations traced deviance to individual failings, Merton argued that it is generated by the ordinary workings of society itself, and he reworked the concept of anomie to demonstrate this.
The concept originated with Emile Durkheim, who used anomie to describe a condition of normlessness in which the moral regulation of desires breaks down, typically during rapid social change. Merton retained the word but relocated its source. For him, anomie arises not from a general collapse of norms but from a specific structural contradiction within a stable society.
Merton's argument turns on two elements of every society: culturally defined goals, which the society holds up as legitimate objects of aspiration, and institutionalised means, the approved, legitimate methods of pursuing them. In a well-integrated society the two are balanced, and people can attain valued goals by approved means. Anomie appears when the culture places heavy, near-universal emphasis on success goals — in his American example, monetary success — while the social structure distributes access to the legitimate means unequally. The poor and disadvantaged are urged to pursue the same goals as everyone else but are systematically denied the education, employment and opportunity needed to reach them by approved routes. This disjunction between goals and means is the structural strain that produces anomie, and deviance is the response to it. Deviance is thus not a property of defective individuals but a predictable consequence of the way the cultural and structural orders are arranged.
Merton mapped the possible responses in his famous typology of five modes of adaptation. Conformity, the most common, accepts both goals and means. Innovation accepts the success goals but adopts illegitimate means, producing crime and fraud — the adaptation most directly caused by blocked opportunity. Ritualism abandons the goals while rigidly clinging to the means, as in the joyless rule-following bureaucrat. Retreatism rejects both goals and means, seen in the vagrant or addict who drops out of the race. Rebellion rejects the existing goals and means and seeks to replace them with new ones. The distribution of these adaptations across the social structure explains why deviance concentrates among those to whom legitimate opportunity is denied.
Critically assessed, Merton's theory is a landmark demonstration that deviance is socially structured, and it accounts well for property crime among the disadvantaged. Yet it has limits. It concentrates on the disjunction of goals and means but says little about how individuals come to choose one adaptation over another, or about crime among the affluent. It assumes a broad value consensus on success goals, which critics find overstated in plural societies, and it neglects the group processes and subcultures through which deviant responses actually develop, a gap later theorists such as Cohen and Cloward filled. Despite these criticisms, Merton's insistence that anomie is rooted in the structure of society remains a foundational contribution.
Examiner's perspective
For a 10-mark answer, examiners want the goals–means disjunction stated with clarity, since that is exactly what makes anomie "structural" in Merton's sense. A frequent error is to blur Merton into Durkheim; a sentence distinguishing normlessness from structural strain earns immediate credit.
The five modes of adaptation should be at least named, with innovation flagged as the response most directly caused by blocked opportunity. Honouring the analytical demand of the question, a brief critical note — on the assumed consensus and the neglected role of subcultures — lifts the answer above description. Precise vocabulary such as institutionalised means and modes of adaptation signals command within the tight word budget.