Chapter 8 Flashcards
Describe and Distinguish
OVERT and
Covert Deviance Characteristics
OVERT characteristics of deviance are ACTIONS or QUALITIES that explicitly VIOLATE cultural NORMS (e.g. vandalism of a car).
COVERT characteristics of deviance are the UNSTATED QUALITIES that make a group a target for sanctions (e.g. ethnic background, age, sex).
Describe ROBERT MERTON’s
STRAIN THEORY
ROBERT MERTON’S
STRAIN Theory states that an individual’s DEVIANT BEHAVIOR DEVELOPS from strain or CONFLICT between pressure to ACHIEVE SUCCESS (i.e. American dream) and CIRCUMSTANCES that PREVENT them from attaining SUCCESS.
Describe 4 Behaviors irt Strain Theory
Innovation: obvious.
Ritualism: Stick to unrealistic goals ignoring reality.
Retreatism: reject working towards success altogether
Revolution: establish new goals to aspire towards.
Describe DEVIANCE
DEVIANCE simply means “STRAYING FROM THE NORM.”
Norms change over time along with conceptions
of deviance. Deviance is DEFINED most OFTEN by the DOMINANT culture.
Describe ALBERT COHEN’s
SUBCULTURAL Theory
ALBERT COHEN developed SUBCULTURAL Theory.
Cohen identified a DELINQUENT SUBculture among teenage gang members, in which the
VALUES of MIDDLE CLASS INSTITUTIONS are INVERTED as a RESPONSE to the FAILURE TO SUCCEED in these institutions, particularly school because of STATUS FRUSTRATION.
In this subculture, NON-UTILITARIAN behaviour is practised: actions that would warrant negative sanction in larger society, such as stealing, receives a POSITIVE sanction INSTEAD.
Describe HOWARD BECKER’s
LABELLING THEORY
HOWARD BECKER’s
LABELLING THEORY states that when a MARGINALIZED GROUP is LABELLED DEVIANT, MEMBERS may INTERNALIZE that LABEL and incorporate it into their status set.
It accounts for SUBculture theory’s weakness of assuming all subcultures are bad, by saying
instead that the DOMINANTS label the MINORITY groups.
Describe CONFLICT DEVIANCE
CONFLICT DEVIANCE is the DISAGREEMENT among groups about WHETHER SOMETHING is DEVIANT (e.g. marijuana use, same-sex marriage).
Describe and Contrast
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST DEVIANCE
ESSENTIALIST DEVIANCE
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM suggests
that SOCIAL ELEMENTS, including deviance and social categories like “race” and gender, ARE NOT UNIVERSAL or natural, and are ARTIFICIALLY CREATED BY SOCIETY.
ESSENTIALISM asserts THERE IS OBJECTIVE universal NATURALNESS to these SOCIAL ELEMENTS.
Describe ERVING GOFFMAN’s
STIGMA (-TA if plural)
3 Types
(Bodily, moral, tribal)
ERVING GOFFMAN OBSERVED interplay of SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM and ESSENTIALISM when studying stigma and deviance.
STIGMATA are human ATTRIBUTES that DISCREDIT a person’s SOCIAL IDENTITY.
BODILY Stigmata are PHYSICAL DEFORMITIES.
MORAL Stigmata are PERCEIVED CHARACTER FLAWS.
TRIBAL Stigmata relate to BEING PART in STIGMATIZED HERALDRY LINEAGE.
In this way, socially constructed differences are interpreted as EITHER DESIRABLE or UNFORTUNATE.
Describe ERVING GOFFMAN’s
THE OTHER
THE OTHER is an ESSENTIALIST IMAGE MADE BY the DOMINANT culture to DESCRIBE SUBcultures, or by a colonizing nation to describe those colonized. The image of the other may be MYSTICAL / EXOTIC and INFERIOR.
It intersects with concepts such as ethnocentrism, colonialism,
stereotyping, essentialism, and prejudice.
Once a deviant behaviour has been associated with otherness, it is often subject to negative sanction, regardless of whether it is damaging to society or completely benign.
Describe RACIALIZING Deviance
Covert
RACIALIZING Deviance is LINKING certain forms of DEVIANCE to COVERT ETHNIC GROUPS. Often by linking their ethnicity to deviant or criminal actions.
While Canada promotes multiculturalism, there is still pressure on those who are culturally different from the mainstream to assimilate, or become the same as the dominant culture.
RACIAL PROFILING is a method of racializing deviance when AUTHORITY TARGET PEOPLE for differential treatment or closer scrutiny based solely on ethnicity, religion, or skin colour, INSTEAD of ACTUAL SUSPICIOUS BEHAVIOR.
Describe the influence of COVERT GENDER Deviance onto society
In a patriarchal society, images of women are often constructed in ways that reflect MISOGYNY, the HATRED of or contempt for WOMEN.
The concept of PATRIARCHAL CONSTRUCT involves social conditions being structured to FAVOUR MEN OVER WOMEN because
MEN are treated as NORMAL, and
WOMEN are inherently COVERT deviant.
MASCULINE VALUES are NORMALIZED through customs, laws, and culture production.
Describe POVERTY a COVERT Deviance
JEFFREY REIMAN
POVERTY is often considered a COVERT characteristic of deviance.
JEFFREY REIMAN argues CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM is BIASED AGAINST THE POOR and that it gives the impression that most crime is committed by poor people. See schools-to-prison hypothesis.
This BIAS is FOUND at ALL STAGES of the system, from defining crime to sentencing. When compared to their middle- and upper-class peers, LOWER-CLASS people generally have REDUCED ACCESS to SOCIAL RESOURCES (knowledge of and ability to navigate the legal system, and influential social connections), and this LEADS to OVER-REPRESENTATION in CRIME STATS.
Furthermore UPPER-CLASS people are BETTER at IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT.
Describe WHITE COLLAR CRIME
EDWIN SUTHERLAND
Criminologist EDWIN SUTHERLAND coined
WHITE COLLAR CRIME to refer to crime COMMITTED by HIGH STATUS people INVOLVING THEIR JOBS. Today the term is not used since it implies that crimes of the rich are different from crimes committed by the poor because all crimes are bad!
The term OCCUPATIONAL CRIME refers to crimes COMMITTED by individuals FOR PERSONAL GAIN in the course of their OCCUPATIONS, and
CORPORATE CRIME is used for crimes committed for the BENEFIT of the CORPORATION at the expense of everyone else in society.
Describe HOMOSexuality as CONFLICT Deviance
HOMOSEXUALITY is deviant in many places, but its social construction differs across cultures in terms of what social sanctions are applied.
Homosexuality is a CONFLICT DEVIANCE issue.
Where homosexuality is regarded as deviant, IDEOLOGY of FAG is mentality that REINFORCES gender roles. People adopting this ideology USE TERMS like “gay” PEJORATIVELY as negative SANCTIONS against behaviour that does NOT CONFORM to THEIR GENDER ROLE EXPECTATIONS.
HETERONORMATIVE Bias - progressive homosexual rights acknowledged.
