Deviance

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Deviance

• Social construction of
• deviance and control

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Common-sense Understanding of Deviance

• By illustration
• List types of deviant behaviour or deviant people
• Problem
• Lists are incomplete and vary across time and
  place
• In statistical terms
• Deviance is rare
• Problem
• No distinction between people who exceed and
  those who fail the expectations

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• As harmful
• Destructive outcomes
• Problems
• Some deviance is not harmful
• Definition of harm varies across time and place

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Sociological Concept of Deviance

• Deviance is behaviour that, in particular social
  contexts and in particular historical periods,
  elicits moral condemnation
• It is therefore subject to social control
• It has two distinct and related dimensions
• Objective
• Thoughts, actions, or characteristics that can
  potentially be defined as deviant
• Subjective
• Moral status accorded such thoughts, actions, and
  characteristics by powerful others

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Problems with Researching Deviance

• Secrecy
• Researchers need to gain the trust of subjects
• Ethical dilemmas
• Discovery of reportable behaviour
• Cross-pressures to respect confidentiality of
  information and to protect safety of the public
• Safety
• Research findings can be used against subjects
  from vulnerable groups in society

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Important Questions in Theory of Deviance

• Causes of deviance?
• Content and character of moral definitions?
• Struggle over labels of deviance?

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Functionalist Theories of Deviance

• Functionalist theories of deviance address the
  question of causes
• Strain theory
• Cultural support theory
• Control theory

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Strain Theory (Robert Merton)

• Malintegration of cultural goals (material
  success) and means available to pursue these
  goals creates strain
• Lower social classes are most likely to
  experience this disjuncture
• Delinquent behaviour is an innovation
• Delinquents accept cultural goals, but reject the
  conventional means of pursuing them, and develop
  unconventional means instead

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Cultural Support Theory

• People become deviant if they have been exposed
  to learning experiences that make deviance more
  likely
• Deviant values support deviant behaviour
• i.e., Make it acceptable

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• A situation may be defined as one in which
  conventional rules do not apply
• e.g., Stealing at work is justified, because one
  is underpaid

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Control Theory

• Deviance does not require special motivation
• It can be expeditious and/or enjoyable
• The proper research question is not Why do some
  people engage in deviance? but Why dont more
  people engage in deviance?
• Answer because of social control

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• Durkheim differential suicide rates are
  explained by differential group pressure to take
  others into account and discourage extremely
  individualistic actions
• Hirshi youth commit crimes if their bonds to
  conventional others are weak, so that they are
  free to act in self-interested way

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Deviance as a Situated Transaction

• Deviant behaviour results from particular types
  of interactions
• It cannot be understood by reference to
  individual characteristics or motivations
• Luckenbill murder as a six-stage transaction
• It begins with a behaviour by the victim that the
  murderer defines as insult
• Presence of onlookers may aggravate the situation

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Gender and Deviance

• Men and women differ in amounts and types of
  deviant activity

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Age and Deviance

• Crime rates (including domestic violence) are the
  highest in late teens and early adulthood
• White-collar crimes occur somewhat later in the
  life cycle
• Alcohol and illicit drug use are the highest
  among young people

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Suicide Rates
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Class, Ethnicity, and Deviance

• Those with indicators of socio-economic
  disadvantage (poverty, minority status) are more
  likely to be involved in
• Crime
• Alcohol
• Drug use
• Suffer from mental illness

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• There is no consensus on this topic because
• Empirical findings are inconsistent
• Disadvantaged people may be more likely to be
  caught and labeled as deviant
• Definitions of crime and deviance may reflect
  class bias

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Social Construction of Deviant Categories

• Subjective character of deviance
• People and acts are not inherently deviant, but
  are defined as such by the powerful in society
• Social condemnation is fluid and dynamic over
  time
• e.g., Living together, having a child outside
  marriage, being gay, cigarette smoking, etc.

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Claims-making in Social Construction of Deviance

• Goals of claims-making about deviance
• Publicizing problematic character of people or
  behaviour (dangerous, irresponsible)
• Shaping a view of the problem (troubled or
  troublesome crime, sin, or illness)
• Building consensus around a new moral category
  (support of media, officials, and the public
  marginalization of opposed views)

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• Successful rhetoric of claim making
• Statistics
• Linking to already existing problem
• e.g., Addiction
• Use of emotionally compelling examples
• Columbine High School killings

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Claim-makers and Ownership of Social Problems

• Claim-makers (moral entrepreneurs) may or may not
  have a vested interest in the problem
• Frame of an issue determines its ownership
• Group in charge of dealing with the issue
• Medicalization shifts the blame away from
  deviants and ignores the structural conditions of
  deviance

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Conflict Theories of Deviance

• Conservative conflict theory
• Various ethnic, religious, professional, or
  cultural groups come into conflict over scarce
  resources
• New deviant categories are constructed in pursuit
  of group interests
• e.g., Bureaucracys interest in expansion
• Radical (neo-Marxist) conflict theory
• Social construction of deviance reflects the
  economic system of capitalism and class
  exploitation

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Labeling and Stigma

• A microsociological perspective
• Stigma is a master status
• Status degradation ceremonies
• Trials
• Hearings
• Psychiatric examinations

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• Resistance to labeling
• Negotiation
• Takes power resources
• Performance
• Disclaimer mannerisms

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Deviant Careers and Deviant Identities

• Deviance amplification
• Attempts to control deviance make it more likely
• Primary deviance has no consequences for
  self-identity

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• Secondary deviance a life organized around facts
  of deviance
• Consistently stigmatized people come to accept
  deviant identity