Sociological Theories Of Deviance

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I’ve known her almost my entire life; her name is Marie. She is beautiful, silly, smart, and independent, but she is also deviant when it comes to social rules and expectations. Sociologically speaking, deviance is just that: “behaviour that breaks rules, or violates people’s expectations (Tepperman, 2013). Marie has broken many rules when it comes to mental illness, appearance norms, and sexuality but of course these behaviours wouldn’t be considered deviant if it were not for the social response to the socially constructed rules.
I remember as a teenager, Marie was always a pretty good kid. She had a small, yet good group of friends, she never did drugs, she did extremely well in school, and yet she was depressed. At first she was just …show more content…

When Marie was struggling with depression, it was really the stress that came along with being labelled that affected Marie. Symbolic interactionists look at the effects of labelling and stigmatization. In order for Marie to receive the label of mentally ill, meant she was an outsider (Tepperman, 2013). On the other hand, critical theorist view mental illness as reflections of unequal social stresses, and disadvantages in society (Tepperman, 2013) Marie grew up in a poorer, less privileged family, and critical theorists continue to find higher-than-average rates of mental illness in these conditions. In regards to Marie’s appearance issues, symbolic interactionist theories suggest that deviants are not born, rather, they are made. They are interested in learning how someone with bulimia learns to purge. Feminist theories tend to focus on issues of beauty. Society places a great deal of pressure on women to conform to the expectations of what beauty is, and Marie felt a strong need to live up to these expectations even though it caused unintentional deviance. Finally when it comes to Marie’s sexuality, symbolic interactionist theories suggest sexual deviants are only different we have repressed, labelled and stigmatized them as different (Tepperman, 2013). Critical theories see dominant groups influencing and defining what sexual activities are normal. Debates about homosexuality result from conflicting beliefs and misunderstandings. When it comes to sexual deviance, functionalist suggest that some of this behaviour is valuable to society because it outlines the boundaries for socially acceptable behaviour and promotes social

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