Deviance: The Two Sociological Theories Of

Among any community there is a set of boundaries that must be respected under penalty of being labeled as deviant. Consequently, a community will create agencies of control in order to punish and fight against all the forms of behavior considered as deviant. In his Study in the Sociology of Deviance, Kai T. Erikson defends the point that deviant forms of behavior are a natural and beneficial part of social life. One of his main arguments is that, in our modern society, “the agencies of control often seem to define their job as that of keeping deviance within bounds rather than obliterating it altogether” (Wayward Puritans 24:2). Now, what if society gave to its agencies of control the role of annihilating deviance? What if the set of

“Deviance in sociological context describes actions or behaviors that violate cultural norms including formally-enacted rules (e.g., crime) as well as informal violations of social norms.”

As I have been constantly reminded throughout the duration of this course, deviance can have many definitions. For the purpose of this paper, I will used the relativist definition: deviance is behaviors that illicit a definition or label of deviance. However, behaviors or acts are not inherently deviant. They become so when the definition of deviance is applied. So the focus is not on why individuals violate norms, but instead how those norms are constructed. Norms are rules of behavior that guide people’s actions (Inderbitzin, Bates and Gainey 2015:3). They are society’s rules of appropriate behavior. Norms are generally broken down into three categories: laws, mores, and folkways. Laws are the strongest norms backed by official sanctions or a more formal response. Mores are “moral” norms that may generate outrage if broken. And folkways are everyday norms that do not generate much uproar if they are violated.

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.

Deviance is defined by the social norms that a person breaks. Looking at my life, I have committed deviance in many instances, at least once a day, so the act of deviance I am going to focus on is a something bigger than just the minute daily cases. A specific deviant act that I can clearly remember is a time that I swam in the Johnson Hall fountain in the middle of the night. Aside from my deviant act, I have a deviant identity that I achieved from going to bed very early as a college student. My peers noticed my secondary deviance of going to bed early, which is how it became my deviant identity. I am also part of a deviant group on Meredith College’s Liberal campus by being an open Republican and Donald Trump supporter. There is a small fraction of us but we stay together as a group that stands out on the campus. Reflecting on my past, I found that these three instances are bold examples of deviance as they have drastically set me apart from my college-aged peers.

This essay will explore the concept of deviance as a social construct, and how it has been used to justify the subjugation of certain communities. It will also show that the construction of deviant bodies, bodies that do not fit the mold of the normative body (white, middle-class, able-bodied, heterosexual, ‘properly gendered’), is maintained and shaped by other categories of social identity such as race, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability, class, and nationality.

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 according to sociologist is the behavior the one part takes in the that is not the norm, and can generate a negative reaction from certain groups. From a sociological perspective deviance is important because it reveals about the society we live in. Deviance requires us to examine and analyze why certain people and even certain groups chose to partake in a certain manor. By examining deviancent behavior we also recognize what the norm is. Labeling theory through a deviant approach states that deviance is caused by others people’s judgment of them, meaning that when a label is put on us more than often we tend conform to label. For example if people begin to label someone as an angry person then he will be under pressure to be

What sociologist mean when they describe deviance as being relative, is deviance isn't a permanent perception. What one culture may view as deviant another may not. Some cultures believe in eating dog and cat as food. Whereas the US culture believe dogs and cats are supposed to be kept as pets. For example it has been known to that South Korea believes an eating dogs. If I went to visit them being from the US with my pet dog they would probably see it as non normal behavior. Most of their people don't keep dogs as a pet so they may see it as deviant behavior.

In sociology, the term deviance alludes to practices or mentalities which conflict with certain social standards. It is clear that aberrant is a captivating theme for sociologist, as well as for TV industry and its viewers, too. I choose to watch the show “Full House”, I saw 1 deviance act. The episode “Fast Friends” is where Stephanie meets new friends, in any case quickly feels pressured that she should smoke. Along with Stephanie trying to fit in she notices that doing something wrong or going against the norms and values is the way to fit in. When starring to join the new group smoking was the way to be cool. The group would smoke in the bathroom because that was the only place they could smoke because if they did it outside of school

Deviance is defined as the violation of cultural norms. This is an extremely broad definition, and depending on who is explaining it, the above definition can mean a variety of different things. It is, however, generally assumed by the public that anyone who is considered "deviant" is putting a negative hold on society. This is not necessarily true. Deviance is exhibited in many forms throughout society. Deviance is not necessarily negative; sometimes the norms of society need to be violated so that new norms can be formed. Society repeatedly attempts to put many social controls on its’ people. Anyone who does not fit the perfect mold of the perfect-citizen would be considered a deviant (Social Deviance, 2006).

Sociological Viewpoint of Deviance Deviance is a wide-ranging term used by sociologists to refer to behaviour that varies, in some way, from a social norm. In this respect, it is evident that the concept of deviance refers to some form of "rule-breaking" behaviour. In relation to deviance, therefore, the concept relates to all forms of rule-breaking whether this involves such things as murder, theft or arson - the breaking of formal social rules - or such things as wearing inappropriate clothing for a given social situation, failing to produce homework at school or the breaking of relatively informal social rules. In practice, the study of deviance is usually limited to deviance that results in

Deviance has had many definitions over the years as sociology has evolved and reevaluated the changing world. Although the definitions created by prominent sociologists including Erickson, Humphrey and Becker, differ there are resounding commonalities include the attention drawn to behavior outside of social norms, the label of deviance being transferred to an individual by way of social consensus and finally the societal reaction to the behavior that will either define it as deviant or not (Franzese, 2009). Most easily identified deviance is that of crime, murder, rape and theft to name a few, although these are obvious examples they are only a handful of types of deviance out of a much larger pool of deviant acts some of which that are

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,

The sociological meaning of deviance perceives that built up principles and standards are made by the general public, not simply ethically announced or separately forced. Sociologists underscore that deviance lies in conduct itself, as well as in the reactions of society to the conduct.