Introduction & Defining Deviance Adler & Adler

1. Introduction & Defining Deviance Adler & Adler Part I

2. I. Defining Deviance

3. A. What is deviant behavior? What is crime? • Deviance is the violation of norms • Anything that falls outside of what is considered “normal”

4. II. Sumner’s (1907) classic definition of folkways, mores and laws

5. A. Folkways • Everyday norms based on custom, tradition, etiquette • Examples: fashion norms, table manners, physical eye contact • Violations are generally not seen as serious but may cause one to be viewed as odd or even avoided

6. B. Mores • Moral norms based on social values • Examples: interracial marriage, drug addition, extramarital relation • Violations seen as more of a threat to social order, and the offender is seen as “bad” and perhaps harmful to society and its institutions

7. C. Laws • Strongest norms since supported by formal code of sanctions • Examples: murder, assault, rape, child pornography • Violations may lead to imprisonment or even death

8. Smith & Pollack (1976) reformulate Sumner: crime, sin and poor taste: • Crime violates laws, sins are acts that contravene religious values; • Poor taste involves violations of informal folkways

9. D. Crime and deviance: Are they the same or different? • First, some acts overlap such as crimes of violence that are both deviant and illegal • Second, much deviance such as obesity or unwed pregnancy are non-criminal • Third, certain criminal violations, such as Martha Stewart’s case, or acts of civil disobedience, do not bring moral censure. • Conclusion: crime and deviance overlap with independent dimensions

10. III. ABCs of Deviance

11. A. Attitudes • Being branded deviant for alternative attitudes or beliefs • Examples: religious cult members, Satanists or political extremists such as terrorists. • Mental illness also falls into this category.

12. B. Behaviors • Overt acts that are regarded as deviant • Examples: violating dress or speech conventions, kinky sexual behavior, using drugs, or violent acts • Achieved deviant status: people cast into deviant label for overt act

13. C. Conditions • Seen as deviant for condition or quality that may be achieved or ascribed deviant status: • Based on condition from birth about which the person can do nothing • Examples: deviant socioeconomic status, the extremely poor or the very rich or having a congenital physical disability • May also be achieved: • Disfiguring oneself or getting full body tattoo

14. IV. Three Categories of Ss

15. A. Sin • During middle ages when religious paradigm prevailed, deviance viewed as religious disorder and sin attributed to satanic influence • Exorcisms performed in order to exorcise demons from individual

16. B. Sick • Medicalization of deviance used to explain drug use, sexual misbehavior, homosexuality, etc: • Use of medical treatment for responding to deviance

17. C. Selected • Certain behaviors seen as intentionally selected lifestyle choices or forms of recreation such as homosexuality, gambling, obesity

18. Review Questions • What are the differences between folkways and mores? What distinguishes one from the other? • Discuss the ABCs of deviance in the context of obesity and homosexuality.

19. On the Sociology of DevianceErikson Part 1 Chapter 1

20. I. Deviance and Boundary Maintenance for Communities Part 1: Ch. 1

21. A. Communities are Boundary Maintaining • Every community occupies a specific space in the world geographically and culturally, which marks it as a special place, a reference point for its members • A community maintains boundaries in the sense that its members tend to confine and limit themselves to a certain range of conduct and behavior Part 1: Ch. 1

22. A. Communities are Boundary Maintaining • Human communities maintain boundaries for the following reasons, to: • retain a given pattern of consistent activity and behavior; • make possible a degree of stability; • retain cultural integrity Part 1: Ch. 1

23. B. Marking and Publicizing Boundaries • How do people learn about boundaries? How do they convey them to the next generation? • The only “material” for marking boundaries is members’ behavior: • The networks of social interaction and relationships between members • Several rituals or behaviors may mark boundaries such as wars, religious or public ceremonies Part 1: Ch. 1

24. B. Marking and Publicizing Boundaries • But the most critical for publicizing boundaries are those which take place between deviant persons and official agents of the community, including: • Criminal trials & punishment (executions) • Excommunication hearings • Courts-martial • Psychiatric determinations of sanity Part 1: Ch. 1

25. II. Communities Promote Deviance Part 1: Ch. 1

26. A. Boundaries are Not Fixed and Constant for the Following Reasons: • Over time there are changes in group structure and leadership • Changes in the surrounding environment • The new generation may challenge the old guard Part 1: Ch. 1

27. B. Deviance Serves a Positive Function for Community • Every public censure of a deviant act provides the community with opportunity to restate the group’s boundaries • Given the utility of deviance for marking and reaffirming boundaries, does it make sense to assume that communities are organized to promote deviance? • Consider that many of the institutions designed to discourage deviant behavior actually operate to perpetuate it: • For example, prisons with high recidivism rates Part 1: Ch. 1

28. B. Deviance Serves a Positive Function for Community • Commitment ceremonies such as trials are rites of passage for the offender which make it difficult for that person to avoid future deviance • Involve formal stage of confrontation between society and the deviant • Represent an announcement about the nature and limits of deviance • Represent a more or less permanent change in a person’s status as deviant such as an ex-convict who is not trustworthy • This sets up a circularity, a “self-fulfilling prophecy” (Merton) Part 1: Ch. 1

29. Review Questions • How does society’s expectations of deviants lead to the “self-fulfilling prophecy”? • What are some valuable functions of deviants? Part 1: Ch. 1