In order to avoid unsettling society, one must be aware of what behaviors are marked as deviant. Deviance allows for the majorities to unite around their normativity, at the expense of those marked as deviant. Conversely, being marked as deviant can actual bolster solidarity within the marked community, as members take pride and ownership in their stigmatized identity and create cohesive units of their own for example, members of the LGBT community unifying around Pride. From a structural functionalist perspective, then, how does society change, particularly in regards to establishing norms and deviant behaviors?
Deviance provides the key to understanding the disruption and re-calibration of society that occurs over time. Some traits will be stigmatized and can potentially cause social disruption. However, as traits become more mainstream, society will gradually adjust to incorporate the formerly stigmatized traits. Take, again, the example of homosexuality. In urban America 50 years ago, homosexual behavior was considered deviant.
This is a question asked by sociologists subscribing to the school of structural functionalism. Structural functionalism has its roots in the very origins of sociological thought and the development of sociology as a discipline. A structural functionalist approach emphasizes social solidarity, divided into organic and mechanical typologies, and stability in social structures. For the structural functionalist, deviance serves two primary roles in creating social stability.
First, systems of recognizing and punishing deviance create norms and tell members of a given society how to behave by laying out patterns of acceptable and unacceptable behavior.
In order to avoid unsettling society, one must be aware of what behaviors are marked as deviant. Deviance allows for the majorities to unite around their normativity, at the expense of those marked as deviant. Conversely, being marked as deviant can actual bolster solidarity within the marked community, as members take pride and ownership in their stigmatized identity and create cohesive units of their own for example, members of the LGBT community unifying around Pride.
From a structural functionalist perspective, then, how does society change, particularly in regards to establishing norms and deviant behaviors? Deviance provides the key to understanding the disruption and re-calibration of society that occurs over time. Some traits will be stigmatized and can potentially cause social disruption. However, as traits become more mainstream, society will gradually adjust to incorporate the formerly stigmatized traits.
Take, again, the example of homosexuality. In urban America 50 years ago, homosexual behavior was considered deviant. On the one hand, this fractured society into those marked as homosexuals and those unmarked as normative heterosexuals. While this us-versus-them mentality solidified social identities and solidarities within the two categories, there was an overarching social schism. As time went on, homosexuality has come to be accepted as somewhat more mainstream.
Accordingly, what originally appears as a fracturing of society actually reinforces social stability by enabling mechanisms for social adjustment and development. Strain theory states that social structures within society may pressure citizens to commit crimes.
Social strain theory was developed by famed American sociologist Robert K. The theory states that social structures may pressure citizens to commit crimes. Strain may be structural, which refers to the processes at the societal level that filter down and affect how the individual perceives his or her needs. Strain may also be individual, which refers to the frictions and pains experienced by an individual as he or she looks for ways to satisfy individual needs.
These types of strain can insinuate social structures within society that then pressure citizens to become criminals. In his discussion of deviance Merton proposed a typology of deviant behavior that illustrated the possible discrepancies between culturally defined goals and the institutionalized means available to achieve these goals.
A typology is a classification scheme designed to facilitate understanding. According to Merton, there are five types of deviance based upon these criteria:. For instance, individuals in the U. Functionalists points out that deviance also has functions.
Emilie Durkehiem, the classical functionalists theories came to a surprising conclusion. Deviance is functional for society. Deviance contributes to the social order in three ways: Deviance clarifies moral boundaries and affirms norms, deviance encourages social unity, and deviance promotes social change.
By moral boundaries, Durkheim referred to a groups ideas on how people should think and act. For example, someone of the higher class could possibly be treated poorly due to the assumption that may be made that they are snobby. Being of the higher class also comes with the treatment of others who view them as attractive or desirable because of their label.
This goes to show that labels and their associated treatments can be positive or negative. The labeling theory is based of off opinions and conclusions made by sociologists and others; however, there has been extensive research on how the labeling theory is used in the criminal justice system.
Dividing civilization into the Eloi and the Morlocks, Wells also mocks the social conditions and classes of the Victorian present. Essentially, the Eloi can even be perceived as the upper class of society and the Morlocks as the lower classes.
Following are thorough analyses of these two species and how he adapts his ideas of social degeneration to. These unfavorable environments were to product of capitalism, in that it created clear distinctions between the rulers and the ruled that created much tension.
It was believed that this idea of egoism could not be reduced by social controls that bonded individuals to society, because a society under capitalism was the source of egoism Lilly, Bonger found that much crime was the result of poverty generated by capitalism, while noting that those in power also engaged in criminal behavior Lilly, In Emile Durkheim wrote the book Suicide, where he tried to find the different causes that compel people to commit suicide.
He remarked that it can be hard to find the causes for suicide, since they people who commit suicide can think of themselves acting with a sound mind, when in fact they are experiencing some kind of a breakdown Durkheim, , p.
Durkheim believed that regulation, integration and the different cultural institutions in society, affected the suicide rate of a country. This he argues, by analyzing statistics of different european countries, and implements his own theory upon it - some might say his theory of how social control affects the suicide rate, is dated, but his reasoning is sound and this paper will try to show it as such.
0コメント