University of Stirling

Faculty of Social Sciences

Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology Undergraduate Programme

Module code: _________SPCU911/SPCU9X1________________

Student ID Number: _________2717119________________

Essay Number: _________________

Essay Title: _______Why are some groups within society labelled as deviant.

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Word Count: ______843________________________

Date submitted: _____6/12/21_________________________

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I confirm that this assignment is entirely my own individual work, all resources have been
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 Why are some groups within society labelled as deviant?

Abstract
This essay will critically discuss why some groups within society become labelled as deviant with
specific reference to various theories of deviancy and the perspectives of various theorists. The
functionalist perspective of deviance will be discussed with reference to Emile Durkheim
theories of deviance and how deviant behaviours and the punishment of it is an essential and
inevitable tool of social control. It will also discuss subcultural theories of deviances, evaluating
the idea that deviance is a label that is attached to a specific group then reenforced by the
agents of socialisation, primarily the media. It will ultimately conclude that the subcultural
theory provides the fullest and most useful explanation of why some groups become labelled as
deviant.

Deviancy is typically defined as behaviours, actions or groups that violate some social norm or
expectations that elicit a negative reaction from others, for example, public drunkenness or
owning a “dangerous dog” may both be seen as deviant behaviours. An important distinction
must be made between deviant behaviour and criminal behaviour (Punch, S. 2013). while some
deviant actions are technically crimes a person who acts in a deviant manner is not necessarily
treated as a criminal, for example, a person who repeatedly violates parking law would be
considered deviant and while they are technically guilty of a crime, they would not be treated in
the same manner is a murderer. There are many theories on why certain groups or behaviours
are labelled as deviant such as functionalism and subcultural theory. This essay willy analyses
and evaluate each of these theories in detail with respect to the question, why are some groups
labelled as deviant.

Functionalist accounts of deviance, such as the ones given by Emile Durkheim state rather than
viewing deviance as something that should be eliminated entirely, they believe that deviance
plays an essential role within the functioning of society. Functionalists believe that every aspect
of society both the positive and negative play some key role in keeping it healthy and functional
much like how each of the various organs of the human body are needed to keep a person
healthy and alive and deviance is no exception (Bauman, Z. 2001). To a functionalist deviance is a
necessary tool for reenforcing social cohesion and encouraging social conformity, in particular
the punishment of this deviance would result in higher levels of conformity and reenforce the
social order (Punch, S. 2013). One example of this would be public hanging, historically, deviant
groups would be publicly hanged by doing this in a public forum for everyone to see individuals
would seek to avoid becoming members of this deviant groups as they do not wish to receive
such a harsh punishment, additionally these public hangings were community events when
people go and socialise with the other members of their community and further reenforce the
social norms of that community. One criticism of this functionalist perspective and in particular
Durkheim perspective is that much of the theory is based on secondary data that many not be
entirely reliable or has been misinterpreted. For example one of Durkheim’s studies of deviance
was not done in relation to crime but rather to suicide, his findings showed that catholic
communities had much lower rates of suicide that protestant ones, Durkheim theorised that
this was because catholic communities had much stronger levels of social control and much
stronger social norms compared to protestant ones (Durkheim, E. 1897). however more recent
studies have shown this to not be the case, one explanation for this discrepancy is that,
because of the strict social norms and taboos surrounding suicide making it so deviant rather
than not committing suicide entirely, when Catholics did commit suicide their families would
cover it up, listing it as an accidental death to avoid stigma, and the data shows that while
Catholics do have lower rates of suicide they have much higher rates of accidental death when
compared to protestants.

Another theory of Deviancy is the Sub-cultural theory of deviance. This perspective of Deviancy
views it as being something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, a group becomes labelled as deviant
due to some perceived violation of the social norm, regardless of whether it actually exists, now
being labelled as deviant these groups are treated differently than other groups in society. This
then causes these groups to become more heavily scrutinised by both the police and the media,
when an incident inevitably occurs it, the media, knowing that coverage of deviant groups is
likely to bring in high viewership, put a strong emphasis on this group reenforcing the idea in
the public consciousness that this group is deviant (Bauman, Z. 2001). This can be seen with two
British sub-cultures from the 1960s and 70s, the mods and the rockers, these two groups would
occasionally come into conflict with one and other but because both were already seen as
deviant youth subcultures the UK media gave such focus and attention to the groups that it
appeared as though they were gunning each other down in the streets, when in reality all that
had occurred were a few street fights (Cohen, S. 2011). This then led to a greater perception of
deviance. One of the criticisms of this perspective is that theorists of this type tend to
overanalyse these groups, even to the point of seeing sociological significance where none
actually exists.

In conclusion, both of these theories provide explanations as to why groups within society
become labelled as deviant. Functionalist view deviance and a natural and inevitable aspect of
society, one that is an essential tool of social control. Whereas Subcultural theorists view
deviance as being something that is attached to a group by society as a self-fulfilling prophecy,
that is then later reenforced by the media. From the evidence fount it would seem that the sub
cultural perspective on deviance is most useful for sociologists and provides the best
explanation.

Reflective statement on essay

Write a 150-200 word statement reflecting on how you found the process of writing the essay. Your
essay will not be marked unless you include this. In your statement you might want to reflect on the
following: what aspects you found easiest/most challenging and why; what you would do differently
next time you write an essay; are there any parts of the essay in particular that you would like feedback
on?
This exercise is designed to help you improve your essay-writing and to get into the habit of critically
reflecting on your work.

Reflective statement:

This essay proved to be both and interesting and challenging subject to write about. Some parts of this
essay were not particularly difficult, providing a succinct and informative explanation of deviancy proved
to be quite a simple task however the challenge came from the many differing theories of deviancy,
figuring out which theories I wished to write about and how to best cover them was a particular
challenge. Finding proper research for this essay also proved challenging, as many of the sources are
long heavy reports which made it difficult to separate the useful information. Where I to do this essay
again I would likely try to include a wider range of theories on deviancy as well as try to cover these
theories in a more in depth way.
Bibliography

Durkheim, E. (1897). Suicide. Published by the Free press. New York.

Cohen, S. (2011). Folk Devils and Moral Panics : The Creation of the Mods and Rockers. Published by
Taylor & Francis Group. Oxford.

Punch, S. (2013). Sociology: making sense of society. 5th edition. Published by Pearson Education. London

Bauman, Z. (2001). Thinking Sociologically. 2nd edition. Published by Blackwell publishing. Hoboken