SOC 2070 Chapter 2: Chapter 2 Textbook Notes.docx

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 2070
• Professor: Norman Dubeski

Document Summary

The sociology of deviance is made up of two distinct interlocking enterprises. Essentialism see deviance as objectively real and hence scientifically explainable. Constructionism argues that the most fundamental feature of deviance is the fact that rules, judgments of wrongdoing, and assigning offenders to deviant categories are rendered by specific audiences in specific contexts. Most positivist of criminologists and sociologists of deviance recognize that all crime and deviance is defined by laws and rules and hence they are relativistic and socially constructed. All positivists believe and must believe in order for their enterprise to be legitimate that an objective common core or thread holds all deviance and crime together, otherwise there would be nothing to explain. It is the application of the scientific method to the study of human behaviour. Positivism is based on three fundamental assumptions (1) empiricism, (2) objectivism and (3) determinism.