SOC 4369 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Premarital Sex, Designer Clothing, Positivism
Document Summary
Deviance - any action, belief, or human characteristics that members of a society or social group consider a violation of group norms and for which the violator is likely to be censored or punished. Ex: smoking is considered deviant in us but not in europe. Deviance is socially defined between time periods, locations, and societies. Ex: pre-marital sex, homosexuality and support from legislation. Criminalization - the process by which the legal system negatively sanctions some form of deviant behavior. There are global trends toward normalizing that which was defined at one time and place as deviant. When people move around to other places in the world, they carry their deviance with them - and the country may consider this not deviant acts or very, very deviant. Drug addicts make acts like prostitutions and stealing to pay for their drugs. Poor people are deviant, drives people to steal in order to survive.
