Deviant Behaviour      
  TTh 9:30-10:45 Rm  118  Purinton 

  WEEK   XV   Spring 2019 

Office Hours

FINAL EXAM - My office, Monday, 10AM 
  for Spring 2019 class 

  Final Exam question: What elements of the main themes we recently discussed in extreme deviance do you identify in the final 3 readings you have chosen?

IF YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLE KEEPING UP WITH THE NOTES - JUST ASK ME TO SLOW DOWN OR REITERATE - NO PROBLEM - THIS IS YOUR CLASS AND YOUR EXPERIENCE - MAKE THE MOST OF IT!

LISTEN, ASK, THINK, BELIEVE, PERSEVERE AND BECOME THAT WHICH YOU RESPECT BECAUSE YOU HAVE CONSTRUCTED YOURSELF FROM THE SELF THAT YOU LIKE. 
                                                               

 NO UNREGISTERED PERSON IS PERMITTED TO SIT-IN OR  MONITOR DEVIANCE CLASS BECAUSE OF COURSE CONTENT. 

                     

                                               Drugs have been around for a long time!

 ASSIGNMENTS: 

  Class Assignments  

  Tuesday 30 April 2019: Discussion of violent, extreme deviance.  
  Thursday 2 May 2019: Individual conferences, my office. 

  Week of 22 April 2019  Homosexuality in today's society is very contentious. Most of America still considers it deviant, but there is much evidence to consider that it is not in terms of those testimonies from the involved. Many feel it is a moot issue in terms of a private form of behaviour. In other words, the jury is still out on homosexuality - normal or abnormal, that is the question. On the other hand, there are probably more people considered "normal" that exhibit ten times more deviant bahaviour that the whole cohort of homosexuals! 

Gambling is a devastating behaviour that destroys not only the single person , but, like alcoholism, goes beyond into families and jobs. Generally a compulsive gambler  is one of a dependent personality and has had some form of dependency in the past. Often one finds that gambling is just another step in dependence and, if abandoned, another dependency crops up. The issue here is gambling is a symptom of a deeper problem . Dependency takes all forms and continues as such.

Week of 15 April 2019  Alcoholism is looked at from two perspectives: it is caused (dependency) by a matter of bad choices or one is born with a dependent personality. Actually alcoholism is more probably a blend between the two. In the case of gambling dependency, it is more likely that it too has two aspects, BUT the casino enhances the dependency by orienting its establishment to the frailities of the dependent personanlity along with a mileau that too enhances dependency.

Week of 8 April 2019  Review and Exam Three  

Week of 1 April 2019   Just as "normal" takes managing, so to does the abnormal or ~ASB. There are many times in one's interaction that what one does is not particularly accepted by others and is sometimes seen as strange or abnormal. These are just blips of personality and often meaningless, but still something has to be done about them . The most common remedy is diversion which the text clearly points out. 3rd Exam due Thursday 11 April.  

  Week of 18 March 2019    Normancy is a created word to indicate one is between deviance and the normal. This is not unusual for all of us strive to be "normal" in the sense that we wish to be collectively included seeking security and identity. However, we all have our personal worlds that will include ideas as fantasy which would not particularly be acdepted in collective experience. In effect, one has to "filter" those ideas so that one may move toward unaccepted behaviour, but stay within the boundaries of ASB or that which is "normal". It can be a juggling act and sometimes we do not do a good job of it and people may say one is "weird", strange ro a but goofy! Of course, there are those who have a hard time managing the normal and often go beyond with their fantasies in such a manner as to get in trouble from counseling to incarceration. Actually, when we get to the violent, extreme area of deviance, this is exactly what has happened - the social controls on behaviour keeping one on the ASB side of normiance have failed and collective action is required.

  Week of 11 March 2019  The thing about stigma and labeling is that it becomes complicated when one realizes that it can go two ways! Thai is to say the labeled or stigmatized person is placed in such a manner as to be better off choosing another social order  that is more amenable to their position. This is created and their new position becomes ASB. (to them) On the other hand, that which was ASB becomes ~ASB to them! This is why it is difficult to counsel a person that has been ostracized by society because they may find a society that is perfectly "normal" in terms of their current behaviour. Why change?

 Week of 4 March 2019   2d Exam  

 Week of 25 February 2019   The chapter under discussion concerns social estrangement. Estrangement means "apart from" and, in deviance studies, it is important. Whenever a person is deemed deviant by the collectivity certain mechanisms are set in motion. Particularly the idea of anomie or being apart from the collectivity. This can be devastating, but it is more than that. A person who is labeled deviant, whether it be mild or extreme, becomes isolated. This does two generic things to the person's personality. It deprives them of self-esteem and often makes them a social pariah that is hard to live with. Either the stigmatized person bends back to society's wishes in terms of being "normal" or they seek another more amenable social grouping. Either instance is problematic because they have lost social credence and the outcome of such is always problematic and can last a lifetime. NOBODY LIKES UNCERTAINTY!

  Week of 18 February 2019    2d Exam due Thursday 7 March 2019: Standard question as outlined above: The examples of The Marching Band and The Rose suggest that there are deviances that are not "bad" and that , in point of fact, good for the community. The Rose however suggests something else. Deviance can be used in such a manner as to point a person's attention in a specific direction without really calling attention to the fact that it is a deviance. Again, deviance depends on who is doing the defining and that definition may have a value judgment not all unsatisfactory. This is also known as "downing deviance". Pay also attention to the idea that deviance may not be super  negative and, because of this, a positive alternate label may be assign known as "tweaking the goal". (see text for examples)

Week of 11 February 2019:  Goal Strength!

  Week of 4 February 2019  1st exam. Continue studying the "Pushers" and acknowledge the other side, i.e., the "Pullers" whose strength can be equal or more than pushers, notably the concept of "goal strength" as suggested in "Pins on the Wall"!

  Week of 28 January 2019    Knowing the Model's structure is not enough to understand the process of deviance. It has to be understood that choice is always a factor. Because one has no chance to meet their generic goal and that the alternatives to bahaviour are not acceptable, this does not mean the individual will take the path of unacceptable social behaviour or deviance. It always takes more to make that decision and that is why we look at the "pushers" or triggers to behaviour that will induce a person toward deviance. As was dfiscussed, labels can be Pushers, but generally are not too strong whereas others are more inducive of moving toward ~ASB which we aill discuss.

  Week of 21 January 2019    Deviance depends on who is doing the defining, but this "definition" is generally not of their making rather a socially defined concept. One of the things hat has been proven in social perception is that if we continually are presented with the same idea - we come to expect it in actuality. This is seen in the photos from the text. One begins to understand why sexism, racism and elitism are so prevalent and continual throughout the decades of America. Those concepts were perpetuated in the mass media and especially in the school textbooks which influenced young children and their perception. What you continually see, you come to expect and through this so too with interaction and behavioural responses.

  Week of 14 January 2019  The road sign of "Watch Children Poop" was interesting in that it suggested deviance can bo on several levels. First, the sign was obviously a mutilation of what is physically expected in road signs - that, in itself is deviant, but it was also obvious that it was not done by a pedophile. More someone who was making a statement about the immediate social order. This was the second, or underlying deviance. The idea being that a deviant act can have two or more sources of unacceptable or levels of reality. The toys also demonstrated deviance depends on who is, again, doing the defining. The Hamburgler is a great toy, but the objection was that it was a toy portraying a criminal. Nowhere is it written does it say that deviance has to make sense, especially when it depends on the subjectivity of the observer.

 First Class Spring 2019 Read Chapter One. Deviance is any unacceptable social behaviour that varies from the norm. Of course, "norm" is an argumentative concept. "Norm" may be a statistical average, a medical definition of physical being or something that "doesn't fit it" or is dysfunctional. This is one of the problems with the study of deviance. Deviance depends on who is doing the defining and also depends on the scientific agenda for gathering and treating data. Deviance depends on the elimination of targets and social problems are generally concerned with contending groups that are not necessarily trying to eliminate one another, but striving for social power and recognition.