Sociology Week 7

Week 7 Tuesday 10/9/2018

By: Maddie Gums

            Today during class, we began to discuss chapter 10 which focuses on the concept of deviance. Deviance is defined as the recognized violation of cultural norms. Within deviance we began to discuss structural-functional theories focusing on Emile Durkheim, Merton, and Albert Cohen. Emile Durkheim focused on the functions of deviance he defined Social Inequalities which is defined as deviance as a failure to conform to the norms of a society. There are 5 functions of Durkheim’s theory including; deviance affirms cultural values and norms, responding to deviance clarifies moral boundaries, responding to deviance promotes social unity, deviance encourages social change, Kai Erikson’s did a study with puritans of Massachusetts bay that brought this theory to life. Merton also had a theory that is known as a strain theory. Strain Theory is defined as the strain between our culture’s emphasis on wealth and the limits’ opportunity to get rich gives rise, especially among poor, to theft, the sale of drugs, or another street crime. Albert Cohen pointed out that delinquency is the most pronounced in lower class youths because they have the least opportunity to achieve conventional success.

 

One thing I can do to benefit myself and society is by thinking in my mind that just because someone likes alcohol, or just because someone is overweight, or just because someone has a lot of tattoos it does not mean that they need to be defined as deviant. This will benefit me because it will allow me to have a more positive outlook on the people around me, and this will benefit society because if I am not labeling people as deviant then they will hopefully not label themselves as deviant.

One thing I can do to negatively impact myself and society is by labeling anyone who does not live up to my standards as deviant. If I began labeling people and telling them that I think they are deviant then it will give them a self-fulfilling prophecy and make them think that they themselves are deviant, and their deviant behavior would increase. This would put more negativity into my life, and this would impact society by allowing more people to think they are deviant, this would not be good.

One thing society can do to positively impact me is by not labeling me a deviant because I have piercings on my face, and ears. Also, by not labeling me deviant for tattoos or because I don’t have the body image that is always expected. This will impact me positively because it will allow me to express myself more and not feel insecure about it.

One thing society can do to negatively impact me is by labeling me deviant because I am short, and not perfectly skinny. Another thing society can do to negatively impact me is by labeling me deviant for expressing myself with body art.

A solution to this would be to not label people deviant for just expressing themselves. Deviance should be for things like stealing and dealing drugs, not for self-expression and not being a perfect weight.