C&D 1: Howard Becker Flashcards
D: What type of sociologist is HB?
E: What is his main concept?
C: What is the name of his study?
D: An interactionist.
E: Labelling
C: Outsiders
D: Complete HB’s quote ‘Deviance is in ….’
E: What does this quote mean?
C: What could happen to a person who is labelled as a deviant?
D: ‘Deviance is in the eye of the beholder’
E: That deviance (either a person or an act) doesn’t exist until other people label it in that way.
C: They could go on to complete a self-fulfilling prophecy. They could join a deviant subculture with others that have also been labelled as deviants.
D: Define ‘labelling’
E: Define ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’
C: Define ‘master status’
D: When a person/ group with some power (agent/ agency of social control) apply a stereotype to a person and/ or their actions.
E: After a label has been successfully applied, people begin to treat the labelled person according to that stereotype, until the person believes the label and acts in that way.
C: A label that is so powerful, it takes over all other labels and is the main way a person is seen. This could be ‘criminal’
D: What methods did HB use?
E: What theoretical strength does this method have?
C: How did HB gain access to the ‘Outsiders’ in his study?
D: Covert participant observation and interviews.
E: They are both qualitative and likely to be high in validity.
C: He was a jazz musician playing in bars where he was able to observe, then to interview people he knew.
D: What type of police practice could be influenced by labelling of BAME groups?
E: Evaluate- is there a problem with saying that nothing is deviant until other people label it that way?
C: Evaluate- what can’t labelling theory explain in relation to criminal and deviant acts?
D: Stop and Search.
E: Yes, some acts are deviant when there is no label. You could argue that a person who commits a crime, does not feel that it is wrong and no one ever finds out can still commit a deviant act- eg abuse of an animal.
C: Why a person commits a deviant act in the first place (before being labelled).
