.What are the social foundations of deviance?

Question

.What are the social foundations of deviance?

Answer 1

The social foundations of deviance are as follows:

1. Deviance is defined by society and is socially constructed, just like conformity. What is deviant in one society might be seen as conformity in another - example: ritualistic female circumcision in Africa is normal there but a deviant crime in the United States.

2. A deviant person is only deviant when labeled as such. A good example of this is: a white senior in high school in a good school goes out with his friends and they get rowdy and late at night, they break a store front window. The police give the kid a break because he's a "good kid", his family rally around the kid, he barely gets a slap on the wrist and people say "boys will be boys" and it doesn't affect his life much, if at all. But a black senior in the same high school that lives in the poor neighborhood might do the exact same thing - go out with friends, break a store window - and the cops arrest him, he gets a court date, he might end up having to check in with a counselor, they tell him he's deviant and he committed a crime and is a criminal. The crime might become part of his criminal record. While the white student was not labeled deviant and would probably live his life unaffected, the black student in this case was labeled deviant and would probably have the label haunt him through every job interview, attempt to secure a scholarship, even find a partner. So basically you are labeled as deviant by society. In other words, people are only deviant because society labels them that way.

3. Both deviance and conformity (rule breaking and rule making, for instance) are a form of power struggle - which hinges on conflict theory.