SA 150 Lecture 6: Chapter 6- SA 150

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Sociology and Anthropology
• Course: SA 150
• Professor: Ann Travers

Document Summary

Deviance: better thought of as a neutral term simply means straying from the norm or the usual. It does not mean that the deviant, the one engaging in deviance, is necessarily bad, criminal, perverted or sick. Deviate is simply to go off the common path. Overt characteristics: actions or qualities taken as explicitly violating the cultural norm. Covert characteristics: unstated qualities that might make a particular group a target for sanctions. Deviant is a category that changes with time, place and culture. Deviance is about relative quantity, not quality. It is set by the dominant culture and different from the subcultures. Subculture is the focal point of one of two early theories of deviance. Three theories of deviance: strain theory, subculture theory, and labelling theory. Merton developed strain theory to explain deviance. Merton identified a disconnect between goals and means to achieve goals.