Deviance, Theories, and Social Control – Vocabulary Flashcards
- The session covers deviance, how norms are defined, how power shapes what counts as deviant, and how different sociological theories explain deviance. It uses classroom anecdotes, campus life, legal/policy examples, and popular culture to illustrate concepts like labeling, stigma, differential association, and the crime-punishment process.
- Key takeaway: deviance depends on social context (norms and reactions) and can be reframed over time (e.g., Rosa Parks later seen as a hero). Inequality is embedded in how deviance is defined and punished, producing and reproducing social gaps (e.g., the pipeline to prison).
- The lecture moves from everyday acts of deviance to macro theories (functionalism, structural strain) and then to symbolic interactionism (differential association, labeling, stigma), ending with real-world applications: crime definitions, enforcement, and institutional rules in education and policing.
- Throughout, several concrete examples anchor the ideas: airport baggage crowding, bike rack issues, parking/public intoxication laws, the crack vs. powder cocaine sentencing disparity, campus protest rules, and the “pipeline to prison.”
- Key formulas/equations are included where appropriate to illustrate concepts like self-fulfilling prophecy and the Thomas theorem.
- Note the teacher’s prompts to students (e.g., last act of deviance, which theory explains a given act) emphasize applying theory to real-life or imagined scenarios.
