Talk:Introduction to Sociology/Deviance

To do
Some suggestions by a friend who specializes in criminology:


 * 1) In your section on strain, perhaps include a short discussion of Robert Agnew's General Strain Theory. Merton is "classic," of course, but Agnew is what people use these days.  I'd also suggest, to help people comprehend Merton (which I think is a good summation), Rosenfeld and Messner's "Crime and The American Dream."  In short, they argue crime occurs because the goals are more important than the means (so a person who has acheived a great deal is worth more, socially, than someone who has acheived less, even if person 1 had committed crimes to get that far).  I think their argument helps people get the idea of a collectivity regarding materialism, and how that tends to eliminate the impulse to behave pro-socially at times.
 * 2) Have you considered including your section on structual functionalism with labeling theory? They seem to blend together quite well, in my opinion; especially when you use examples of the Columbine shootings in your section.
 * 3) In your discussion of white-collar crime, perhaps Charles Tittle's Control-Balane Theory would help? It asserts that people have general (overall) and specific (contextual) control ratios (the amount of control you have over others, compared to the amount of control others have over you).  So, a CEO has a significant surplus of control at work, but perhaps not at home, and perhaps not at PTA meetings.  It also makes a unique argument: for those who have the greatest control deficits (which could perhaps imply the infirm, or the poor), there is less crime committed due to a lack of autonomy.
 * 4) I think your labeling section would be boosted by a discussion of Charles Lemert's definitions of primary and secondary deviance. Secondary deviance is what happens when people accept the label they are given as their "master status," and act accordingly.  I think the Columbine example would work exceptionally well here.  Primary deviance, on the other hand, is, in the words of labeling theorists, "all that other shit."  To their chagrin, they never bother to explain primary deviance (those actions, criminal, delinquent, or merely not normative, that get the attention of others sufficient to begin using a label), but, as you point out in your section on structural functionalism, there are behaviors that, by virtue of their existence, help unify others socially; it is possibly those acts of primary deviance that help do so (think Megan's Law, or that fucking sex offender relocation act downtown).
 * 5) Other theories/theorists you should consider:
 * Hirschi and Gottfredson's "A General Theory of Crime" (the $100,000 theory, as it's cited so damned much; it would fit in a section on social control)
 * Terrie E Moffit - "Pathways in the Life Course to Crime" (this focuses on developmental theories, and starts with childhood control problems and antisocial tendencies, so it's pretty encompassing)
 * Social Disorganization Theory (William Julius Wilson, Robert Sampson, Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay) - Pretty much all "chicago school" stuff, but focuses on unstable areas in communities (housing, employment, and residential instabilities) that lead to crime through a collective breakdown of norms.
 * Differential Association/Social Learning Theory (Sutherland and Cressey, Sykes and Matza) - Focuses on the small group processes in which crime is learned through "definitions" favorable to crime/deviance over definitions unfavorable to prosocial behavior. (perhaps Becker's piece on learning to get high would work well here, and articles on Marijuana, regrettably, always resonate well with undergrads - and probably grads too).
 * Biosocial Theory (Lombroso's long-discredited work on the biological criminal archetype, for instance). Phrenology is also pretty fun, and if you can find a phrenological map (I think I have one saved) is interesting for discussion, since it was developed prior to Lombroso's calls for positivism (the same positivism that discredited his theory), and thus comes from the time when we just made shit up.

Thomasfbrown (talk) 22:04, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Add section on the four rationales for punishing offenders.
 * Add section on Durkheim's contribution re anomie.
 * Add section on the relativity of deviance.
 * Compare psychological and biological perspectives on deviance with the sociological perspective.

I think this section is mislabeled or should be changed. There's no (or very little ) discussion of "norms." some discussion might help since really the two terms -- deviance and norms -- are defined in tandem and different theories, e.g. structural functionalism, take different positions on the relationship of the two. [User: rlkap 12/28/2010]

Gender theory
Under the header gender, this nice little textbook (my compliments to those who contributed to it) says: "While the focus of this chapter is not on exploring the motivations behind rape, the number of rapes in the U.S. and internationally can be seen to reflect power imbalances (social-conflict approach) between men and women." It suggests that a higher rate of rape might be correlated with power imbalances in a country. Maybe I am missing something, but I find it hard to believe that there is more power imbalance between men and women in the United States than in Saudi-Arabia and Oman (see the chart), those are hard-line Islamist countries in which women have few, if any, rights. But I'm not a sociologist. It would be good if someone who actually knew something about this subject, elaborated on this issue in the book. --Democrat 23:46, 11 June 2006 (UTC)