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Deviance, in a sociological context, describes actions or behaviors that violate social norms, including formally-enacted rules (e.g.

, crime),[1] as well as informal violations of social norms (e.g., rejecting folkways and mores). It is the purview of sociologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and criminologists to study how these norms are created, how they change over time and how they are enforced.

Contents
1 Deviance as a violation of social norms o 1.1 Deviance as reactive construction 2 Theories 2.1 Structural-functionalism 2.1.1 Durkheim's theory 2.1.2 Merton's strain theory 2.2 Symbolic interaction 2.2.1 Sutherland's differential association 2.2.2 Neutralization theory 2.2.3 Labeling theory 2.2.4 Primary and secondary deviation 2.2.5 Control theory 2.3 Conflict theory 2.3.1 Karl Marx 2.3.2 Michel Foucault 2.3.3 Biological theories of deviance o 2.4 Other theories 3 Functions of deviance 4 Cross-cultural communication as deviance 5 Types of deviance 6 The Criminal Justice System 7 Deviance in literature/film 8 See also 9 References 10 Notes

Deviance as a violation of social norms


Norms are rules and expectations by which members of society are conventionally guided. [2] Deviance is a failure to conform to these norms.[3] Social norms are different in one culture as

opposed to another. For example, a deviant act can be committed in one society that breaks a social norm there, but may be normal for another society. Viewing deviance as a violation of social norms, sociologists have characterized it as "any thought, feeling or action that members of a social group judge to be a violation of their values or rules"; [4] "violation of the norms of a society or group";[5] "conduct that violates definitions of appropriate and inappropriate conduct shared by the members of a social system";[6] "the departure of certain types of behavior from the norms of a particular society at a particular time"; [7] and "violation of certain types of group norms [... where] behavior is in a disapproved direction and of sufficient degree to exceed the tolerance limit of the community."[8]

Deviance as reactive construction


Deviance is concerned with the process whereby actions, beliefs or conditions (ABC) come to be viewed as deviant by others. Deviance can be observed by the negative, stigmatizing social reaction of others towards these phenomena. Sexual acts that stray from opposite-gender, monogamous sex is typically construed as sexually deviant or deviating from the norm. Criminal behavior, such as theft, can be deviant, but other crimes attract little or no social reaction, and cannot be considered deviant (e.g., violating copyright laws by downloading music on the internet). People may have a condition or disease which causes minor segments in a society to be potentially alienated, such as having HIV, dwarfism, facial deformities, or being obese. Deviance is relative to time and place because what is considered deviant in one social context may be non-deviant in another (e.g., fighting during a hockey game vs. fighting in a nursing home). Killing another human is considered wrong except when governments permit it during warfare or for self-defence. The issue of social power cannot be divorced from a definition of deviance because some groups in society can criminalize the actions of another group by using their influence on legislators.[9]

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