Deviance

Table of Contents

1. Deviance as a Violation of Social Norms

2. Deviance as Reactive Construction

3. Theories

4. Structural Functionalism

5. Durkheim’s Basic Insight

6. Merton’s Strain Theory

7. Symbolic Interaction

8. Sutherland’s Differential Association

9. Neutralization Theory

10. Labeling Theory

11. Primary and Secondary Deviation

12. Control Theory

13. Conflict Theory

14. Functions of Deviance

15. Cross-Cultural Communication as Deviance

16. Types of Deviance

17. The Criminal Justice System

18. Deviance in Literature and Other Arts

19. References

Deviance in the context of Sociology is described as actions and or behaviors that violate social norms. Including formally enacted and informal violations of social norms (folkways and mores). It is the outlook or comprehension of sociologists to study how these norms are created, how they change with time and how they are enforced.

Deviance as Violation of Social Norms:

Norms are rules by which members of a society are guided. They are not necessarily moral or grounded in morality. They are mostly practical and paradoxically irrational, e.g. manners. They have no logical grounds but are followed and adopted by everyone in society. Norms are rules of conduct, ever changing along with the society, could be highly selfish and one sided. They are highly contextual.

Deviance can be described as violation of these norms. When there is a failure in conformation to culturally reinforced norms that is called “Deviance.” Social norms are different in every culture. One deviant act can be committed in one culture where it breaks social norms but in other society it might be considered normal. Sociologists have characterized deviance as “any thought, feeling or action that members of a social group judge to be a violation of their values or rules.”

Deviance as Reactive Construction:

Others concern deviance with the process where actions, beliefs...