Chapter 1 Flashcards
1
Q
Objective views of deviance focus on what?
A
- Deviance is characterized as being single, common, clearly identifiable characteristic
- Presence of certain characteristics make someone deviant, absence makes them normal
- Focuses on the ACT of deviance
2
Q
Subjective views of deviance focus on what?
A
- Deviance is the result of processes of social construction such that a person, behaviour, or characteristic is deviant if enough people say it is
- No shared, observable trait, instead, society tells us what is deviant
- Focuses on PERCEPTIONS and REACTIONS to deviance
3
Q
What are the four characteristics that objectivists typically see as being cause for a “deviant” label?
A
- Statistical rarity
- Harm
- Negative societal reaction
- Normative violation (most important)
4
Q
What are the different types of harm in the objective view of deviance?
A
- Physical harm (to others or to oneself)
- Emotional harm
- Social harm (directed at society and interferes with smooth running of society as a whole)
- Ideological harm (threat to the way we see the world)
5
Q
What is the “absolutist” conception of norm violation?
A
- Particular behaviour or characteristic is perceived as being inherently and universally deviant
- Certain immutable norms and values should be held in all cultures at all times
- What is considered wrong in one place should be wrong everywhere
- E.g., cross-cultural norms prohibiting murder, incest, lying, etc.
6
Q
What are the differences between folkways, mores, and laws?
A
- Folkways: Informal; norms that govern informal, everyday behaviours (e.g., clothing choice, etiquette); violation makes you seem odd/rude, but there are minimal consequences
- Mores: Informal; norms that are considered to be the foundation of morality, have more force and threat to beliefs; violation makes you seem immoral or evil
- Laws: Formal; norms that are central to smooth running of society so they are enshrined in the legal system
7
Q
What is the consensual view (of law)?
What is the conflict view (of law)?
What is the interactionist view (of law)?
A
- Consensual = Suggests society’s laws emerge our of consensus
- Conflict = Laws are created by the powerful to serve their own interests; aka the social power perspective; social groups lobbying for their own interests; e.g., lower class youth are more likely to be entered into justice system than middle class youth who commit the same crime
- Interactionist = Suggests that society’s powerful define the law at the behest of interest groups, who appeal to those with power to rectify a perceived social ill; criminal law does not arise from consensus, but from interests of certain groups in society
8
Q
What is high-consensus vs. low-consensus deviance?
A
- High-consensus deviance: Forms of deviance about which there are high levels of agreement in society
- Low-consensus deviance: Forms of deviance about which there are low levels of agreement in society
- Usually criminal law is characterized by higher consensus than society’s non-legislative norms
9
Q
What are prescriptive vs. proscriptive norms?
A
- Prescriptive = What we should do
- Proscriptive = What we shouldn’t do
10
Q
What are dominant moral codes?
Where do they come from?
A
- The “lists” of right/wrong, appropriate/inappropriate, moral/immoral that predominate in a particular society at a given time in history and that are enforced in multiple ways
- Serve as a foundation for understanding deviance
- Power dynamics are key to understanding where these come from
11
Q
What is social constructionism?
A
- Social characteristics (e.g., “thin”, “delinquent”) are creations or artifacts or a particular society at a specific time in history, just as objects are artifacts of that society
- Dominant moral codes emerge from processes of social construction - something is deviant only because it is defined as such, therefore definitions of deviance are context-specific
12
Q
What are the two types of constructionism?
A
- Radical/strict constructionism: Claims the world is also characterized by endless relativism - if everything and anything is looked at in a certain way, that is the way it is (essentially, everything just is)
- Soft/contextual constructionism: Emphasizes processes by which certain social phenomena come to be perceived and reacted to in particular ways in a given society at a specific time (there is a degree of context involved)
13
Q
What are the levels of social construction?
A
- Sociocultural (beliefs, ideologies, values, and systems of meaning have influence on social construction)
- Institutional (structures of our society such as government affect social construction)
- Interactional (interactions with others affects our perceptions of them and has a role in social construction)
- Individual (our own identities and concepts of self affect paths of social construction)
14
Q
How does social constructionism affect how we view sociological significance?
A
- It is not the individual behaviour that is of importance but rather: it’s place in the social order; roles assigned to people who exhibit those behaviours; meanings attached to those behaviours
15
Q
What are the two extreme ends of the objective-subjective continuum?
A
- Extreme objective end = deviance specialists who have proposed an absolute moral order as standard for determining deviance (more likely to study high-consensus forms of deviance)
- Extreme subjective end = most radical constructionists, suggest there is no reality outside of perception (most likely to study low-consensus forms of deviance)
