This document discusses different sociological perspectives on deviance. It begins by defining deviance as socially disapproved behavior that violates prevailing norms. It then examines structural functionalism, which argues that some deviance can serve useful purposes for society by defining boundaries and creating social solidarity. Absolutism views certain behaviors as inherently right or wrong, while relativism states that deviance is socially constructed and dependent on cultural and group judgments. The document also discusses how deviance occurs through a violation of expectations and social reaction. It analyzes theories of deviance like strain theory and deterrence theory, and how deviance can be controlled through criminalization and medicalization.

1. SOC 208
Sociology of Everyday Life
SOCIAL DEVIANCE
PhD Fatma Altınbaş Sarıgül

2. What is Deviance?
• Socially disapproved behavior on norm that
prevails in a community or in society at large.
• The determination of which behaviors are
deviant, depends on the structure of the
society.
• But there are some acts which are commonly
seem as deviant, as child abuse.

3. Structural Functionalism view of
Deviance
• Structural functionalism argues that deviance,
as a class of behaviors, not always bad for
society and may actually serve as a useful
purpose- as defining the cultural and moral
boundries in a society, distinguishing right
from wrong and creating a group
togetherness.
• They can contribute a maintenance and
continuity in a society.
• Deviance can also create needed change.

4. Absolutist view of Deviance
• According to absolutism, there are two
fundamental types of human behavior;
1. That which is inherently good and proper
2. That which is bad, evil, and improper
But who decides that?
The rightness and wrongness of an act exists
prior to socially created rules, norms and
customs.

5. Absolutist view of Deviance
• Absolutist definitions imply something about
society’s relationship with the person who is
considered deviant.
• Being defined as deviant means being
identified as someone who cannot and should
not be treated as an ordinary member of the
society.
• Absolutist images of deviants are often
oversimplified and stereotyped.

6. Relativist view of Deviance
• Relativism draws from symbolic interactionism
and the conflict perspective.
• This approach states that deviance is not inherent
in any particular act, belief or condition; instead it
is socially constructed, a creation of human
collective judgments and ideas.
• Complex societies consist of different groups with
different values and interests, so their
perceptions of deviant maybe different.
• Deviance is relative.

7. Difference of two Approaches
• The absolutist approach assumes that certain
individual characteristics are typical of all
deviants, but the relativist approach
acknowledges that there is no typical deviant.
• Acc. to relativists, the same act committed by two
different people may yield very different
community responses.
• Both approaches acknowledge that every society
identifies certain individuals and behaviors as
deviance, however for a relativist, the main
concerns defining deviance are not so much what
is committed but rather who commits it, who
labels it and where and when it occurs.

8. How Deviance Occurs
• An expectation: some sort of behavioral
expectation must exist
• A violation: of normative expectations.
• A reaction: from an individual, group, or
society. For ex: avoidance, criticism,
warnings, punishment, treatment.

9. Deviant Behavior
• Sociological theories focus on the
environmental forces that act upon people
and the effectiveness of various methods to
control them.
• Strain Theory: The contradictions in the daily
lifes of people causes increase of committing
deviant acts.
The correlation between unemployment and
property crime.

10. Deterring Deviance
• Deterrence Theory: assumes that people are
rational decision makers who calculate the
potential costs and benefits of a behavior
before they act.
– A punishment to be effective must be swift,
certain and severe.

11. Criminalization and Medicalization
• The predominant means of controlling those
whose behavior does not conform to the
norms established by the powerful.
– For ex: the assumption of poor people more
likely commits crime.
– For ex: Political critics considered as crazy and to
be hospitalized.

12. Deviance
• The importance of mass media on creating the
assumption of deviance.
• Drug use as deviance.
• Depression, hyperactivity as deviance in the
society.

13. Depoliticizing Deviance
• Disruptive behaviors or statements
automatically loose their power to prompt
social change when they are seen simply as
symptoms of individual defects and illnesses.
• Individual problems not social- the authority
lead the society to think that way