SOCI 2610H Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Social Control Theory, Social Control, Differential Association
Document Summary
Chapter summary: many different theories are used in the sociology of deviance, corresponding to the various ways one can look at deviance. Durkheim directed his attention to anomie as the root cause of deviance; merton suggested a strain between institutionalized goals and legitimate means as the cause; A number of functionalist theories have also been criticized for treating deviance as a lower-class phenomenon and ignoring gender and race. Empirical and theoretical research has responded to these criticisms, exploring noncriminal forms of deviance across classes and analyzing gender and race in a variety of situations: learning theories explain deviance as a result of individual learning processes. Differential association theory suggests that we learn techniques and motives within intimate groups that lead us either into deviance or into conformity. According to neutralization theory, the key process is the learning of rationalizations that enable people to think that what they are doing is not really wrong.