Deviance

How it is used

Wider than crime: dyeing your hair green or talking to yourself on a bus may be seen as deviant without being illegal. Sociologists stress that deviance is relative, because what counts as deviant changes between societies and over time. The adjective is deviant.

Example sentences

1. Becker argued that deviance is not a quality of the act but a result of how others respond to it.

2. The module covers crime and deviance from functionalist and interactionist perspectives.

Common collocations

• crime and deviance
• primary deviance
• secondary deviance
• deviant behaviour
• sociology of deviance

Related terms

• normA written or unwritten rule about how people are expected to behave in a particular situation, supported by approval when it is followed and by sanctions when it is broken.
• social controlThe formal and informal ways a society encourages people to follow its norms and discourages deviance, from laws and the police to gossip and disapproval.
• labelling theoryThe theory that deviance is created when people with power successfully label certain acts or individuals as deviant, which can lead the labelled person to accept that identity.
• stigmaA mark of disgrace attached to a characteristic, condition or identity, which leads other people to see a person as less acceptable or less normal.
• anomieA condition in which the norms that guide behaviour become weak, unclear or contradictory, often during rapid social change, leaving people without direction.

More terms: Deviance and Social Control

• moral panic