Defining Deviance

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Defining Deviance

Deviance is the violation of social norms and expectations.

Violating norms accepted by either a significant number of people in a community or society, or those with the power to enforce.

Is Deviance BAD?????

Deviance can be dying hair purple to committing murder!!!!

Deviance has two functions:

Defines the boundaries of acceptable behavior

Promotes integration.

Sumner -What are Norms?

Folkways, mores, and laws.

Folkways Norms: Simple everyday norms based on custom, tradition, or etiquette. Standards of dress, demeanor, physical closeness to or distance from others, and eating behavior.

More: Are norms based on broad societal morals whose infraction would generate more serious social condemnation. Interracial marriage, illegitimate childbearing, and drug addiction all constitute moral violations.

Laws: Are the strongest norms because they are supported by codified social sanctions. People who violate them are subject to arrest and punishment ranging from fines to imprisonment (and possibly death)

- SMITH AND POLLACK - Suggest deviance might be conceptualized as violation of the norms associated with crime, sin, and poor taste.

Criminal Acts: murder, rape, assault, robbery, and arson.

Sin: Religious proscriptions and often involve such acts as promiscuous, lewd, extramarital, or homosexual, gambling, drinking, and abortion.

Poor Taste: Challenge existing standards of fashion, manners, or traditions, violate social norms and are unregulated by law.

ABC of DEVIANCE:

A: Attitudes

B:Behavior

C: Conditions

Attitudes can be branded deviant fro alternative sets of attitudes or belief systems.

Behavioral is the most familiar, behaviors may be intentional or inadvertent, and include such activities as violating dress speech conventions, engaging in kinky sexual behavior, smoking marijuana, or committing murder.

-Achieved deviant status: Have earned the deviant label through something they have done.

-Ascribed deviant status: A condition they acquire from birth.

Condition - Having a deviant socioeconomic status such as being either extremely poor or ultra rich, a deviant racial status such as being a person of color or having a congenital physical disability. Conditional deviance due to their personal and or racial ethnic characteristics ( ht, wt. color) Deviant can be achieved when people burn of disfigure themselves. When they become too thin, tattoos, piercings, or scarification