SOCI 2520 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Social Control, Conscience Vote, Homicide
Document Summary
When we think of deviance, we frequently think of negative behaviors such as crime or substance abuse. Historically, certain themes in defining deviance have prevailed what have been referred to as. This shift in emphasis from the unusual to the mundane illustrates that deviance is not marginal, it is central to what we do. The concept of deviance transcends the individual level and instead exists at the societal level, whether or not these processes correspond to your individual beliefs or challenge them. Deviant is defined in the dictionary as deviating [straying] from an accepted norm. In academia, deviance is studied by deviance specialists who analyze criminal and noncriminal forms of deviance; those who focus exclusively on criminal forms of deviance are more specifically known as criminologists. Objective views of deviance claim that the presence of certain characteristics defines deviance; behaviors or people with those characteristics are deviant, and those lacking such characteristics are normal.