Chinese, Mandarin

Spanish

English

Hindi

Arabic

Portuguese

Bengali

Russian

Japanese

Punjabi

German

Javanese

Malay

Telugu

Vietnamese

Korean

French

Marathi

Tamil

Urdu

Turkish

Italian

Chinese, Yue / Cantonese

Thai

Gujarati

Chinese, Jin

Chinese, Min Nan

Persian, Dari

Persian, Western

Polish

Pashto

Kannada

Chinese, Xiang

Malayalam

Sundanese

Hausa

Odia

Burmese

Chinese, Hakka

Ukrainian

Bihari, Bhojpuri

Tagalog

Yoruba

Bihari, Maithili

Uzbek

Sindhi

Amharic

Fula

Romanian

Oromo

Igbo

Azerbaijani

Chinese, Gan

Dutch

Kurdish, Central

Kurdish, Northern

Kurdish, Southern

Malagasy

Lahnda, Saraiki

Nepali

Sinhalese

Chittagonian

Zhuang

Khmer

Turkmen

Assamese

Madurese

Somali

Marwari

Bihari, Magahi

Haryanvi

Hungarian

Chhattisgarhi

Greek, Modern

Chewa

Dakhini

Akan, Twi

Akan, Fante

Kazakh

Chinese, Min Bei

Sylheti

Zulu

Czech

Kinyarwanda

Marwari, Dhundhari

Haitian Creole

Chinese, Min Dong

Ilocano

Quechua

Kirundi

Swedish

Hmong

Shona

Uyghur

Hiligaynon

Mossi

Xhosa

Belarusian

Balochi

Sociology

<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Deviance is a more encompassing term than crime, meaning that it includes a range of activities, some of which are crimes and some of which are not. Sociologists may study both with equal interest, but, as a whole, society views crime as far more significant. Crime preoccupies several levels of government, and it drives concerns among families and communities.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Deviance may be considered relative: Behaviors may be considered deviant based mostly on the circumstances in which they occurred; those circumstances may drive the perception of deviance more than the behavior itself. Relatively minor acts of deviance can have long-term impacts on the person and the people around them. For example, if an adult, who should “know better,” spoke loudly or told jokes at a funeral, they may be chastised and forever marked as disrespectful or unusual. But in many cultures, funerals are followed by social gatherings – some taking on a party-like atmosphere – so those same jovial behaviors would be perfectly acceptable, and even encouraged, just an hour later.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	As discussed earlier, we typically learn these social norms as children and evolve them with experience. But the relativity of deviance can have significant societal impacts, including perceptions and prosecutions of crime. They may often be based on racial, ethnic, or related prejudices. When 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford of the Little Rock Nine attempted to enter her legally desegregated high school, she was abiding by the law; but she was considered deviant by the crowd of White people that harassed and insulted her. (These events are discussed in more detail in the Education chapter.)
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Consider the example of marijuana legalization mentioned earlier. Why was marijuana illegal in the first place? In fact, it wasn’t. Humans have used cannabis openly in their societies for thousands of years. While it was not a widely used substance in the United States, it had been accepted as a medicinal and recreational option, and was neither prohibited nor significantly regulated until the early 1900s. What changed?
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	In the early 1900s, an influx of immigrants began entering the country from Mexico. These newcomers took up residence in White communities, spoke a different language, and began competing for jobs and resources. They used marijuana more frequently than most Americans. Police and others began to circulate rumors regarding the substance’s link to violence and immorality. Newspapers and lawmakers spoke about the “Marijuana Menace” and the “evil weed,” and articles and images began to portray it as a corrupting force on America’s youth. Beginning in 1916, state after state began passing laws prohibiting marijuana use, and in 1937 Congress passed a federal law banning it (White 2012). Penalties for its usage increased over time, spiking during the War on Drugs, with racially and ethnically disparate applications. But more recently, as discussed in the introduction, marijuana is once again seen as an important medical treatment and an acceptable recreational pursuit. What changed this time?
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Perceptions and proclamations of deviance have long been a means to oppress people by labeling their private behavior as criminal. Until the 1970s and 1980s, same-sex acts were prohibited by state laws. It was illegal to be gay or lesbian, and the restrictions extended to simple displays like holding hands. Other laws prohibited clothing deemed “inappropriate” for one’s biological sex. As a result, military service members and even war veterans were dishonorably discharged (losing all benefits) if they were discovered to be gay. Police harassed and humiliated LGBTQ people and regularly raided gay bars. And anti-LGBTQ street violence or hate crimes were tacitly permitted because they were rarely prosecuted and often lightly punished. While most states had eliminated their anti-LGBTQ laws by the time the Supreme Court struck them down in 2003, 14 states still had some version of them on the books.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	To further explore the relativity of deviance and its relationship to perceptions of crime, consider gambling. Excessive or high-risk gambling is usually seen as deviant, but more moderate gambling is generally accepted. Still, gambling has long been limited in most of the United States, making it a crime to participate in certain types of gambling or to do so outside of specified locations. For example, a state may allow betting on horse races but not on sports. Changes to these laws are occurring, but for decades, a generally non-deviant behavior has been made criminal: When otherwise law-abiding people decided to engage in low-stakes and non-excessive gambling, they were breaking the law. Sociologists may study the essential question arising from this situation: Are these gamblers being deviant by breaking the law, even when the actual behavior at hand is not generally considered deviant?
</OpenstaxParagraph>

7.1.1 Deviance, Crime, and Society

1 An Introduction to Sociology

1.1 What Is Sociology?

1.1.1 What Are Society and Culture?

1.1.2 Studying Patterns: How Sociologists View Society

1.1.3 Studying Part and Whole: How Sociologists View Social Structures

1.2 The History of Sociology

1.2.1 Creating a Discipline: European Theorists

1.2.2 Applying the Discipline: American Theorists and Practitioners

1.3 Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology

1.3.1 Functionalism

1.3.2 Conflict Theory

1.3.3 Symbolic Interactionist Theory

1.3.4 Sociological Theory Today

1.4 Why Study Sociology?

1.4.1 Sociology and a Better Society

1.4.2 Sociology in the Workplace

2 Sociological Research

2.1 Approaches to Sociological Research

2.1.1 The Scientific Method

2.1.2 Interpretive Framework

2.1.3 Critical Sociology

2.2 Research Methods

2.2.1 Surveys

2.2.2 Field Research

2.2.3 Experiments

2.2.4 Secondary Data Analysis

2.3 Ethical Concerns

3 Culture

3.1 What Is Culture?

3.1.1 Cultural Universals

3.1.2 Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism

3.2 Elements of Culture

3.2.1 Values and Beliefs

3.2.2 Norms

3.2.3 Symbols and Culture

3.2.4 Language and Symbols

3.2.5 Language and Culture

3.3 High, Low, Pop, Sub, Counter-culture and Cultural Change

3.3.1 High, Low, and Popular Culture

3.3.2 Subculture and Counterculture

3.3.3 Cultural Change

3.4 Theoretical Perspectives on Culture

4 Society and Social Interaction

4.1 Types of Societies

4.1.1 Preindustrial Societies

4.1.2 Industrial Society

4.1.3 Postindustrial Society

4.2 Theoretical Perspectives on Society

4.2.1 Émile Durkheim and Functionalism

4.2.2 Karl Marx and Conflict Theory

4.2.3 Max Weber and Symbolic Interactionism

4.3 Social Constructions of Reality

4.3.1 Roles and Status

4.3.2 Presentation of Self

5 Socialization

5.1 Theories of Self-Development

5.1.1 Psychological Perspectives on Self-Development

5.1.2 Sociological Theories of Self-Development

5.2 Why Socialization Matters

5.2.1 Nature versus Nurture

5.3 Agents of Socialization

5.3.1 Social Group Agents

5.3.2 Institutional Agents

5.4 Socialization Across the Life Course

5.4.1 Resocialization

6 Groups and Organization

6.1 Types of Groups

6.1.1 Defining a Group

6.1.2 Types of Groups

6.1.3 In-Groups and Out-Groups

6.1.4 Reference Groups

6.2 Group Size and Structure

6.2.1 Dyads, Triads, and Large Groups

6.2.2 Group Leadership

6.2.3 Conformity

6.2.4 The Bystander Effect and Diffusion of Responsibility

6.3 Formal Organizations

6.3.1 Types of Formal Organizations

6.3.2 The McDonaldization of Society

7 Deviance, Crime, and Social Control

7.1 Deviance and Control

7.1.2 Social Control

7.2 Theoretical Perspectives on Deviance and Crime

7.2.1 Functionalism

7.2.2 Conflict Theory

7.2.3 Symbolic Interactionism

7.3 Crime and the Law

7.3.1 Types of Crimes

7.3.2 Crime Statistics

7.3.3 Public Perception of Crime

7.3.4 The U.S. Criminal Justice System

8 Media and Technology

8.1 Technology Today

8.1.1 What Is Technology?

8.2 Media and Technology in Society

8.2.1 Categorizing Technology

8.2.2 Types of Media and Technology

8.2.3 Product Advertising and the Attention Economy

8.2.4 Homogenization and Fragmentation