SOCI 1301 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Erving Goffman, Labeling Theory, Upper Class
29 Apr 2020
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Deviance - a violation of established contextual, cultural, or social norms. Deviant acts are dependent on location, audience, and the individual committing the act. Ex) listening to music at your house / listening to music during a sociology class. Ex) telling dirty jokes with your friends / telling dirty jokes with your sociology teacher. Ex) a 20-year-old man in a club picking up women /80-year-old married man picking up women at a club. Ex) a couple making out at their home / a couple making out at school. It is not the act itself that is deviant, it is how people react to the behavior that makes an act deviant. Deviance can be positive / pushes social boundaries. Rosa parks refusing to give up her seat. Societies need systems in place to punish others. Functionalism and deviance: durkheim believed that deviance is a natural and important part of society because it causes people to think outside the box.
