Deviance In Sociology

What defines deviance in today’s society? Is it the abnormal things that people don’t usually do or is it just criminal behavior? Deviance has brought up many questions on what could be defined as it. Deviance is usually shaped by society. It can be defined as the violation of established contextual, cultural, or social norms, whether folkways, mores, or codified law (OpenStax 142). Sociologist want to see why deviance has so many different areas and how it effects a group in a society. For example, deviance can be a male cross dressing as a female or female making a scene on public transportation. It all goes about on how people see things that is not acceptable to society. In a sense, it’s like social control. Social control can be defined as the regulation and enforcement of norms (OpenStax 144). Social Control lies under social order to make sure everything is maintained. For example, when you have a job and you violate the guidelines, the boss usually steps in to enforce them. Deviance can be viewed in three different theoretical views. These views are functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. Whether an act is labeled deviant or not depends on many factors, including location, audience, and the individual committing the act (Becker 1963) (OpenStax 143).

What is social deviance? Social deviance is acting against the norms of a society. There are a few things that can can be caused from the act of deviance. The social norm in our society here is to talk in the first person, not the third person. On Wednesday, my act of deviance was talking in the third person, a subtle approach to this assignment, but everyone knew I was being different. My goal in this essay is to inform on the different sociology ideas I thought of while I was being deviant. The five ideas I first thought of were: privilege of ignorance, social-self, agents of socialization, sanctions, and memory.

The two sociological theories of deviance I chose to study are the functional theories and the interactionist theories. The functional theories views crime and deviance as a result of structural tensions and a lack of moral regulation (Giddens, Duneier and Appelbaum 172). A important concept of the functionalist view is that of anomie, this idea suggests that there are “…situation[s] in which social norms lose their hold over individual behavior” (Giddens, Duneier and Appelbaum 172). This view also suggests that deviance is necessary in modern society because it “…brings about change…” and sets boundaries “…between good and bad behaviors (Giddens, Duneier and Appelbaum 172)

Throughout the decades many theorists have tried to define as to why an individual may engage in a ‘criminal’ manner. But we have to ask ourselves whether or not that is the right question. Travis Hirschi goes beyond and asks why do most of us conform to societal views, allowing him to understand what differentiates offenders from non-offenders rather than uncovering why someone commits a deviant act. Despite disagreeing with the others starting point, Hirschi did indeed attempted to mix the theories in with each other in order to explain social control. In this sense, control theory is not so much a theory of deviance as a theory of conformity (95). This essay will argue that Hirschi’s Social Control (Bond) theory is easily comparable and contrastable with Classical Criminology, Durkheim’s Theory of crime, and Merton’s Theory of crime

“Deviance is broad concept with encompassing all types of beliefs and behaviors that violate established and social norms” (GGG P.10). It is anything bad that violates the norms and rules of the society. It is kind of behaving different ways from others. It is ranging from murder to shoplifting. However, it depends how it serious and breaking the social law. There are more debates about what is considered to be deviant behavior or what is not. For example, if young man drinks in a party while rest of the people are not drinking he might violate the norm. So, what is deviant behavior in one culture may be a norm for other culture. At the same time, Durkheim was a functionalist who favor that breaking the rule is part of social structure that serve to set boundaries what are socially acceptable and what is not acceptable. Durkheim argued that anyone who across the acceptable boundaries can be punishable. According to Durkheim “In addition to Anomie, these included the notions that societies needed crime to mark and affirm their boundaries “(DCC P. 2). When it comes to function he mentioned that community needs to each other for example, Instructor needs student to teach, and we need police for our safety, driver’s needs community. It means all community are interdependent. The main idea is that if some people violate the norms and break the law there are other people who support and keep the law and not violate the norms.

There are many avenues to studying human interactions associated with deviant behavior through sociology, but what exactly defines “deviant behavior”? There is no one definition that truly solidifies what deviance is. Society plays a significant role in critiquing deviant behavior as it differs from each individual’s cultural beliefs. Sociologists continue to research human interaction/deviant behaviors by analyzing statistics, languages and ethnicity. There are different approaches in which sociologists observe society’s interactions either through a: positivist, relativist, and critical conception perspective. Although all three do have similarities, there perspectives on human behavior are diverse. Sociologists may analyze the same information,

Deviance is behavior which is contrary to what is subjectively perceived normal within a society, according to J.J. Macionis, a professor of sociology, in his book Society: The Basics (2017). Society often looks at deviance and nonconformity as poor behavior because much of what is considered abnormal is vile in nature such as murder, rape, and hitting reply all in a group email; however, there are certain positive behaviors which society all too often does not practice and as a result, this positive behavior is still considered deviance from a sociological perspective but is referred to as positive deviance. This week, I did everything I could to practice positive deviance and the results were spectacular. First, I simply offered hugs to people that looked like they were having a bad

The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of social deviance, which is based on the violation of social norms. Depict the social construction based o Becker and The moral entrepreneur such as rule creator and ruler enforcers. To the extend of why rules are created, based on the evolving of the society based on social panic. How society are being brainwashed by the news to place pressure on higher authority in put some rules about. Social panics according to Cohen and the seven stages of a moral panic. Furthermore, the positivist perspective and social learning theory according to Bandura.

All Sociologists characterize deviant conduct as conduct that is seen as disregarding expected standards and principles. Deviance is significantly more than simply basic non-similarity; it is conduct that hauls out fundamentally from social desires.

All people exhibit some forms of hypocrisy, often times we believe one thing yet do the opposite. We love to hate cheaters, liars, and thieves yet most people have cheated, lied, or stolen to an extent. A popular show on TV called Dexter portrays a "good" murder who kills "bad" people, yet the viewer feels sympathy for Dexter because he's a likable citizen (when he's not killing people). Most people would see murder as a horrific doing yet the act of taking someone's life is respected when talking about the U.S. Armed Forces. The reason some bad behaviors are deviant and others are not is because deviance varies among places, cultures, and contexts. Deviance is created. In learning about deviances, I have become interested in the development of the deviant identity through the Labeling Theory, the concept of social control agencies creating deviance, and the hypocrisy around drugs and deviance.

Deviance occurs in everyday life. Everywhere you look, one society or another may consider your thoughts, beliefs, or actions to be deviant. For the children of Appalachia, everyday life would be deviant through the viewpoint of the rest our country, but for these children, it is the norm. The documentary looked at multiple children living in Eastern Kentucky; their homes, families, schools, careers, entire lives were completely exposed for the world to see their deviance. This is a look at the children of Appalachia and how they set the standard for deviance in the United States today. Some of the forms of deviance we will be looking at include what people’s attitude towards the child are, how their deviance is constructed, poverty, drugs,

Social deviance is considered a broad term, it tends to describe actions or behaviors that violate society’s “norms.” Norms, in a simple context, are rules by, which members of society are expected to conform to. When it comes to discussing the term deviance, it tends to mean a person’s failure to conform to unspoken rules established by society. Social deviance can have many forms and interpretations. Deviant acts are primarily relative to the setting because deviance in one place could be considered non-deviance in another place. Theft, violence, murder, or any kind of criminal behavior, can be considered either deviant or non-deviant, depending on the context. It's coming up to countries, establishments, and governing bodies to determine, which acts are and aren’t acceptable. An example, could be murdering someone for drugs is not acceptable, but murdering someone in an act of self-defense is. It can be concluded, all acts of deviance are subjected to review and accepted on the condition that it fits what society holds acceptable. Acts of deviance can result in some very positive outcomes.(Why is this here?)

Theories of Deviance are limited in their ability to explain deviant acts if one adopts the view that these theories are universal. There is no universal, right or wrong theory, rather each theory provides a different perspective which only "fully makes sense when set within an appropriate societal context and values framework" .

What did you learn this week that you did not know before or that you found interesting in this class? This week I’ve learned about Social Groups and Deviance. I didn’t know too much about social groups. Now I know that a social group is a group that has been defined as two or more people who that interact with one another, share the same characteristics, and collectively have a sense of unity and are consequentiality of relative or objective apply.

Deviance occurs when an individual commits something that disregards or breaks a social norm or folkway; deviant behaviors are considered criminal when it breaks more serious mores. These mores or laws, unlike norms or folkways, have more formal punishments and sanctions, such as fines or imprisonment. The purpose of these punishments or sanctions, according to Diana Kendalt (2017) in Sociology in Our Times, is to give retribution, make a general deterrence, incapacitation, or rehabilitation. In that order, it is to punish the offender fairly for a crime (eg. An eye for an eye, and the death penalty), make a punishment so undesirable that it prevents the act from being committed by other or the first offender, long