SOCIOLOGY (Chapter 6: Deviance)

(Theories of Deviance) Both society's rules and the punishments for breaking those rules are applied unequally

Conflict

Individuals who accept society's approved goals but not society's approved means to achieve them Ex. People who want to achieve financial success via unconventional means such as drug dealing or embezzlement

Innovators

(Theories of Deviance) Deviance is determined by the social context

Labeling

Individuals who reject society's approved goals and means, but instead create and work toward their own (sometimes revolutionary) goals using new means

Rebels

Individuals (like dropouts or hermits) renounce the culture's goals and means entirely and live outside conventional norms altogether

Retreatists

Individuals who have given up hope of achieving society's approved goals but still operate according to society's approved means

Ritualists

WHAT THEORY IS THIS? Sociologist Robert Merton provides a bridge between functionalism and conflict theories of deviance. - Like Durkheim, he acknowledges that some deviance is inevitable in society. - But like conflict theorists, he argues that an individual's position in the social structure will affect their experience of deviance and conformity. OVERALL, Social inequality can create situations in which people experience tension between the goals society says they should be working towards.

Structural Strain Theory

(Theories of Deviance) Social inequality creates tension between society's goals and the means an individual has to achieve those goals

Structural strain

TRUE or FALSE? Deviance can help: - a society clarify its moral boundaries - promote social cohesion (people can be brought together as a community in the face of crime or other violations

True

Definitions of deviance are constructed from _____________, __________, and ________________ norms.

cultural; historical; situational

a behavior, trait, or belief or other characteristic that violates and norm and causes a negative reaction

deviance

___________ behavior must be sufficiently serious or unusual to spark a negative sanction or punishment.

deviant

(Theories of Deviance) Deviance reminds us of our shared notions of wrong and right and promotes social cohesion

Functionalism

(Theories of Deviance) We learn to be deviant through interactions with people who break rules

Differential association

This theory falls under symbolic interactionism: which asserts that we learn to be deviant through our interactions with others who break the rules

Differential association

This theory falls under symbolic interactionism: which proposes that deviance is not inherent in any act, belief, or conditions; instead, it is detremined by the social context

labeling

Functionalism argues that each element of social structure helps maintain the __________________________________.

stability of society