After reading Chapter Six, the student should be able to:
- Define deviance and conformity from the sociological perspective and note how the sociological application of deviance is different from commonly held assumptions about it.
- Explain what sociologists mean when they say that deviance is relative.
- Discuss the importance of norms in social life and apply this concept to a classroom setting.
- Define positive and negative sanctions, providing examples of each and how they may affect behavior in not only a desired manner but also how each may create unintended issues to confront.
- Compare biological, psychological, and sociological explanations of deviance.
- State the key components of the symbolic interaction perspective on deviance, and briefly explain differential association theory, control theory, and labeling theory.
- Summarize the reactions by deviants to their own behavior, how and why they neutralize deviance to continue specific behaviors that violate the norms of society.
- Discuss the major reasons why functionalists view deviance as beneficial for society.
- Describe Merton's strain theory, and list and explain the five types of responses in his typologies of adaptation.
- Identify the relationship between social class and crime by using the illegitimate opportunity theory and perspectives on street crime and white-collar crime.
- Explain the conflict view of the relationship between class, crime, and the criminal justice system and trends in crime rates.
- State why there is a need to use more than one theory of deviance in trying to explain this behavior and discuss how the different theories can be combined.
- Describe the characteristics of imprisonment and the social factors associated with arrest, conviction, and incarceration.
- Identify the how imprisonment solves and creates problems as it is used in the United States and the success of imprisonment in modifying behavior.
- Discuss the reasons functionalists, conflict theorists, and symbolic interactionists would provide for the massive increase in prison populations in the United States since 1980.
- Discuss the application of the death penalty and the pros and cons for its use as the ultimate negative sanction a society can impose.
- State why official statistics may not accurately reflect the nature and extent of U.S. crime.
- Discuss why serial murder is so stunning to the American public and cite some of the infamous examples of serial murder in recent U.S. history.
- Define the medicalization of deviance, why it is a popular trend, its opposition, and potential affect on society.
- Suggest and discuss how society could benefit by changing its response to serious deviant behavior, and why such change is difficult to develop and implement.
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