Labeling Theory in Deviance Research: A Critique and Reconsideration

The labeling, or interactionist, theory of deviance is reviewed and critically evaluated with brief attention focused on alternative formulations as these have influenced the labeling conception. Dissatisfaction with the present state of the theory emphasizes its overconcern with deviant categories with a subsequent failure to adequately account for social control. A reconsideration of the Lemert-Becker and, recently, Quinney formulations redirects attention to an organization-centered sociology, a neglected component in most labeling research. This posits social control as an organizational problem of (1) adaptation to change, and (2) management of conflict within and between groups and associations. A paradigm is presented to organize the variety of approaches to deviance and social control. It summarizes the differences in the alternative perspectives, herein called structure, interaction , and control . The underlying assumptions, modes of analysis, and theoretical and conceptual content provide the dimensions for assessing these categories.     

The Social Marketability of Self: Toward a New Theory of Social Deviance

Abstract

Deviance theory has problems in accounting for. (a) the form deviance takes within and between social groups, and (b) why individuals continue or discontinue deviant careers and responses. This paper deals with these problems by providing a new conceptualization of social deviance. Essentially, the theory is a combination of two ideas. First, we can all be thought of as social commodities; our commodity value (marketability) is based on the qualities we possess that others desire. Second, we all desire certain identities (ideas of who we are or would like to be) validated by others through their actions. Deviance is viewed as a response to strains involving this marketability-identity nexus that is in a continuous process of change.     

Disciplinary pluralism: four models of private justice in the workplace1

This paper develops a typology of four different models of discipline that operate in the workplace. These models are derived from a systematic analysis of the literature using a framework developed by criminologists for examining crime and criminal justice systems. The analysis focuses on each model's views of human nature, social order, rule creation, crime and deviance, disciplinary procedure and philosophy of sanctioning. The analysis highlights the important role played by organizational structure in shaping disciplinary form. The implications of the typology are discussed for current debates about the character of an all-pervasive societal discipline. It is concluded that current unitary visions of such discipline as ‘instrumental’should be modified in the light of the pluralism implied by the typological analysis.     

PATHOLOGICAL INTERNET COMMUNITIES: A NEW DIRECTION FOR SEXUAL DEVIANCE RESEARCH IN A POST MODERN ERA

This article explores the impact of the Internet and related technologies on the nature of deviant behavior, deviant communities, and the future of deviance research. The idea that pathological communities, once largely suppressed by time, space, and societal restraints, can now create and use virtual communities is focal. Those new communities may expand their numbers and/or pathology, while reinforcing their rationales for rule violations. Investigation of these new virtual communities is especially complex for both conceptual and methodological reasons: identity is hard to ascertain in cyber-settings; nationality, ethnicity and other background traits and standard (e.g., random) sampling methods are not feasible. Nonetheless, the impact of communications technology on the creation and expansion of pathologically deviant communities requires exploration to determine whether, for example, immersion and social support lead to satiation-catharsis, more aggressive real-time behavior, and/or increases in the depth and number of pathological sexual preferences.     

THE PROFESSIONAL EX-:

Research on persons exiting deviance has centered on identifying the processes where-by they abandon the behaviors, ideologies, and identities associated with their specific career by replacing them with more conventional lifestyles and identities. This study suggests that relinquishing the behaviors and lifestyles associated with a particular deviant career does not always imply total abandonment of a deviant identity. The central tenets of Ebaugh's (1988) model of role exit are applied and adapted to provide an alternative conceptualization of exiting deviance. Drawing on data gathered through introspection and open-end interviews with 35 professional ex-s currently employed in a variety of community, state, and private institutions providing treatment to individuals with drug, alcohol, and/or eating disorder problems, four central stages of this specific exit process are explicated: emulation of one's personal therapist, the call to a career in counseling, status-set realignment, and credentialization. Preliminary analysis suggests that professionalizing rather than abandoning a deviant identity facilitates exiting deviance.     

Bad Sports: Explaining Sport Related Deviance

While sometimes dismissed as an unimportant subject for analysis, the study of sport has offered important insights into our social world. Yet the academic study of sport‐related deviance has not kept pace with the explosion of popular media products regarding deviance in sport over the past four decades. This can be explained in part by the sheer diversity of sport related deviance which defies applying a singular theoretical explanation. A number of approaches from the sociology of sport and other social sciences offer useful ways of making sense of sport related rule‐breaking while also providing valuable insights into larger questions regarding crime and deviance. This paper reviews three contemporary perspectives used in the study of sport deviance: deviant overconformity, moral panics and consumptive deviance. Drawing from exemplary studies of performance‐enhancing drug use, hooligan violence, and sport celebrity scandals, I highlight the ways in which these perspectives offer a “sociological corrective” to media misrepresentations as well as insights that extend beyond sport and into contemporary social issues including race and gender relations, economic inequalities, crime, youth violence, and celebrity culture. I conclude by addressing new developments and avenues for future research.     

Issues in the Study of Deviance*

Several issues in the study of deviance are discussed: the definition of deviance; the significance of the deviant act; cultural relativism; the influence of social structures and causation. By using departures from rules to define deviance, sociologists may repeat fallacies of formalistic jurisprudence. Deviance is best left undefined, and preferably delimited ontologically in terms of middle range theory. Spector and Kitsuse's revisionist theory is judged insufficient for macro-analysis of deviance because they fail to reconcile the influence of objective and subjective factors. Cottrell's choice and feedback model is advocated as a means to study the dynamic process wherein values are aggregated in the social definition of deviance. The problem of bringing objective factors into this analysis is solved by showing how changing costs alter the order in which values are satisfied and thus change the overt pattern of societal reaction.     

The Micro System of Deviance in Intimate Relationships*

Deviance in intimate relationships may lie as much within the micro system of such relationships as it does within the personalities of the actors involved. Using a Parsonsian framework, it is argued that the strain of systemically disequilibrated relationships can produce deviant personality adaptations which, in turn, intensify conflict and deviance in those relationships. It is also proposed that a reciprocal quality exists to such maladaptations, with each member of the dyad contributing to the amplification of a stable system of deviant behavior patterns within the relationship. Because the patterns of maladaptive dyads spill over into parent-child relationships, they have implications for understanding intergenerational transmission of deviance between intimates.     

THE FUNCTIONS OF THE SOCIAL BOND

Travis Hirschi's control or social bonding theory argues that those persons who have strong and abiding attachments to conventional society (in the form of attachments, involvement, investment, and belief) are less likely to deviate than persons who have weak or shallow bonds. Later, Gottfredson and Hirschi moved away from the social bond as the primary factor in deviance, and toward an emphasis on self-control. In short, low self-control is associated with higher levels of deviance and criminality irrespective of the strength or weakness of one's social bonds. In this article I argue that Talcott Parsons' AGIL schema easily incorporates Hirschi's social bond into its broader analytical framework. Furthermore, from within the logical framework of Parsons' system, Hirschi's move from an emphasis on social bonds to an emphasis on self-control is wholly compatible with, and even anticipated by, the AGIL schema. The article illustrates, and argues for, the continuing importance of theoretical subsumption in sociology and criminology. Lastly, a set of testable hypotheses is generated based upon this theoretical reformulation.     

Class,Conflict, and Criminalization

Abstract

Considerable attention has been given by social scientists to the relationship between social inequality and criminality. However, the dominant paradigms over the past several decades have each focussed attention upon one basic aspect of the relationship to the neglect of the other. Anomie theory emphasizes the connection between structural inequalities and deviant behavior, but neglects the definitional processes by which deviance is made a social reality. Labeling theory emphasizes definitional processes, but neglects their structural and behavioral bases and, surprisingly, consequences. Most recently, various “new criminologists” have been attempting to develop a theory that explaines how structured inequalities generate both the behavioral and the definitional realities of deviance. Two major variants are emerging: the Marxian and the Weberian. Points of agreement and disagreement are indicated, and a prognosis regarding the future development of theory is offered. Despite their basic agreement on the paramount explanatory significance of social conflict and power, Marxian and Weberian criminologists disagree on (a) the nature of scientific inquiry, and (b) the nature of social organization, and diverge on the meanings of class, conflict, and criminality. Neither theory as such is likely to become the approved paradigm for conventional research and officially sponsored studies or action programs, although Weberian theory is more likely to be tolerated, because it is more amenable to selective interpretation and modification.     

Saints and Sinners: Elite Tattoo Collectors and Tattooists as Positive and Negative Deviants

Arguing that the deviance literature has presented an overly negative image of norm breaking, some researchers in the 1980s and 1990s began to argue for a category of positive deviance that included studies of individuals who exceed social norms (Ben-Yehuda 1990; Dodge 1985; Heckert 1989, 1997, 1998). The positive deviance perspective inspired several strong theoretical statements suggesting that deviance can only be conceptualized as a negative response to norm breaking (Best and Luckenbill 1982; Goode 1991; Sagarin 1985). The result is a schism between researchers studying positive deviants and those investigating negative deviants. This article looks at two groups within the most elite realm of tattooing, tattoo collectors and tattooists, and identifies how they use both positive and negative deviant attributes to maintain a privileged status on the fringe of society. By exploring an example of individuals who exceed and fall below social norms, I offer two new categories of positive deviance: high culture icon and popular celebrity. In addition, I examine how individuals who occupy both positive and negative deviant statuses challenge assumptions within normative and social response perspectives of deviants and point to larger processes of social change and social stability.     

Behavioral Determinants of Nonprofit Board Performance

There is an increased awareness that the performance of boards (good governance) is not only determined by structural determinants but by behavioral determinants as well. These behavioral determinants might be particularly important for public and nonprofit governance, where the role of the board is more diffuse and heterogeneous than in corporate governance. Here we investigate how social dynamics within boards in secondary education influence their performance. We follow a concise model that includes cognitive conflict, the use of expertise, effort norms, and social cohesion as determinants of board task performance. A survey among all secondary schools in the Netherlands serves as the empirical underpinning for this process‐oriented model of good governance. We show that the behavioral determinants have different effects on the control task and advice task of boards. Also, we find that cognitive conflicts in supervisory boards do not lead to less but rather to more social cohesion within boards. Building on these findings, we suggest a revised model of the behavioral determinants of nonprofit board performance.     

Community conflict resolution: the development of social capital within an interactional field

Purpose: In recent years, we have seen the concept of social capital incorporated into academic and popular discourse within the United States and across the globe. Social capital has been linked to the differences in land sale prices among agricultural producers to the economic decisions individuals make as they participate in a market economy to educational attainment, and the collective benefit of more effectively managing the physical and economic resources of a collective.Justification for the focus on social capital has been based on the role social capital plays in enhancing the ability of communities to manage human, economic, and environmental capital. High degrees of social capital have been suggested to enhance a community’s ability to manage controversy. Yet, little is known about the development of social capital within a community. Questions arise such as, “Does a community have to have social capital before a conflict develops if it is to successfully resolve a community wide dispute? If not, then what conceptual framework will provide insight into the development of social capital as a community engages local conflict?”This paper provides a linkage between the community literature, which examines community as an interactional field and the evolving concept of social capital. The concept of community as an interactional field was supported by Kauffman (1959) as he presented an argument that community can be viewed as a field of social interaction, which when strengthened and focused, the result is the creation of public good oriented actions. This public focus provides a structure to better organize and manage community wide resources.Wilkinson, a student of Kauffman, continued this conceptual work as he described two fields. The social field and the community field. The primary distinction between the two fields is that in the social field individuals pursue their own self interest while a community field cuts across these fields and is more generalized. It is within the community field that we see collective action focusing on public good.Methods: Drawing upon a case study the question of “how does social capital develop?” is addressed. This paper examines the development of social capital within the context of a community conflict. By examining the process through the lens of community as an interactional field the development and impact of social capital is highlighted. Utilizing a case study of a small rural Nebraska community the process of social capital development is examined as a small geographically isolated rural community engages across social fields building social capital as it heals and gains skills to manage its human, economic and environmental resources.In this paper I provide a theoretical overview of the conceptual components of social capital, link those to the concept of community as an interactional field and use this theoretical synthesis to examine a case study of a small Nebraskan community as it attempts to resolve a serious community conflict.Results: The findings suggest that social capital is a consequence as well as a cause of community action. The interaction within the social field provides a preliminary forum for increased acquaintanceship densities, which provide in-depth personal knowledge about players across social fields and beyond specific self interests. Norms develop, trust and reciprocity evolve from the increased acquaintanceship density across social fields. Social capital develops as the collective action takes on a community focus versus that of a specific individual or organization. In the case of Alton, Nebraska, social capital developed within the community field as the residents engaged in conflict over a local school.Conclusion: This case study provides insight into how social capital not only can enhance the community’s ability to manage resources but may develop as a consequence of collective action such as resolving a local conflict.     

Deviant Acts by Complex Organizations: Deviance and Social Control at the Organizational Level of Analysis1

The study of deviance and social control can be expanded to recognize that (1) organizations, not just individuals, commit deviant acts, and (2) other organizations have responsibilities for preventing or controlling that deviance. This paper focuses on these phenomena. It defines organizational deviance, applies Blau and Scot?s cui bono taxonomy to suggest types of organizational deviance, provides a categorization of controller organizations by the types of deviance they control, and considers the social control of organizational deviance. The paper concludes by suggesting that organizational deviance should be among the theoretical, empirical, and methodological interests of an increasing number of contemporary sociologists.     

Out of the Disability Closet: strategic use of perception management by select university students with disabilities

This study examines the ways in which university students with apparent and hidden disabilities actively manage the perceptions of others. Interview data were collected and analysed by theme. Students indicated that they valued their own experience of disability, but were aware that knowledge of their disability altered the behaviors of others toward them. Whereas some perception management strategies have previously been called denial and 'passing,' for our participants these behaviors constituted a set of interpersonal skills. Participants evaluated themselves positively while struggling to project an image as complex individuals rather than stereotypes. Within deviance theory, passing as non-disabled has been conceptualised as a reactive social behavior that is motivated by low self-regard or fear. Our findings do not support this model. We, therefore, examine perception management within the framework of social identity theory.     

Legitimating the First Tattoo: Moral Passage through Informal Interaction

Once considered low class or dangerous symbols, tattoos began to be defined as hip, trendy, and glamorous in the 1990s. Using the increasing popularity of tattoos among nineties youth as an example of moral passage, this article examines some of the interpretive processes at work in the destigmatization of deviance. Whereas researchers have positioned political action or population shifts as the main forces influencing moral passage, this article posits a new route toward social change. It builds on participant observation data with a population of middle‐class tattooees and examines how individuals attempted to legitimate their tattoos during interactions with others. First‐time tattooees in the 1990s are seen as agents caught between multiple symbolic orders—symbolic orders that generated conflicting images of tattoos. Relying on a set of legitimation techniques, middle‐class tattooees worked to overcome the negative meanings associated with tattoos by getting body art that conformed to core mainstream norms and values. By examining the creation and use of these legitimation maneuvers, this article reveals the way in which definitions of deviance are negotiated in everyday contexts. In addition, the process of legitimation identified in this article points to one way in which everyday interactions can contribute to larger cultural shifts.     

A post-Keynesian regulatory model of privatization

Many studies of privatization adopt the neo-liberal model which focuses on financial and economic distributional outcomes, and ignores social costs transferred to the state or broader society. We adopt a post-Keynesian point of view by identifying the social outcomes of privatization and the recipients of their effect in the society. We review regulation theory and discuss the effects of regulation on social and financial outcomes. Finally, we introduce a balanced regulatory model to show that privatization can become a process that achieves economic development and realizes broader social objectives.     

Beyond Neighborhoods and Crime: Expanding the Scope of Social Disorganization to Explain Occupational Deviance

This article proposes a structural explanation for the occupational deviance dimension of white collar crime. The systemic model of social disorganization theory is used as a framework for understanding organizational conditions that produce high rates of occupational deviance. The model of workplace disorganization proposed here posits parallel mechanisms can be found in communities as well as organizations. Marginalized workplaces, employee turnover, and employee heterogeneity are antecedent factors that discourage employee network formation and collective action against deviance. By refocusing on organizational factors, we offer a broader understanding of occupational deviance, one that can predict and explain the workplace conditions under which counterproductive behaviors occur.     

SCIENTOLOGY “ETHICS”: DEVIANCE,IDENTITY AND SOCIAL CONTROL IN A CULT-LIKE SOCIAL WORLD

Qualitative research at the macrosocial level can be facilitated by examining the more fully articulated social worlds existing within advanced societies. Based on the author's field research, Scientology's structure, culture, and comparability to American capitalist society are discussed and “Ethics,” its institution of social control, is shown to involve a paradigm in which conduct flows from social identity and deviance is defined in terms of a progression of stages of identity loss through reference group confusion. A hypothetical case shows how each stage is treated through specific intervention formula designed to reverse the process. “Ethics” is shown to closely parallel symbolic interactionist theories of deviance. Its differences from symbolic interactionism are ascribed to the inherent contradiction between the individualistic and system-centered orientations permeating American capitalist society.     

Dimensions of Oppression: theorising the embodied subject

This paper argues that a critical study of disability needs to examine how disability is subjectivity experienced, both at a conscious and an unconscious level, as well as having an appreciation of disabling social policies and structures. I begin by identifying the reasons why many social model theorists have not, in the past, seen the analysis of 'experience' as being relevant to our understanding of disability. I adopt an interdisciplinary approach (that is, one that recognises the importance of biological, social, relational and unconscious levels of analysis) in the study of two specific groups of people; those with learning difficulties and those with sickle cell anaemia. I focus particularly on the role of modern medicine within a disablist society in this attempt to demonstrate that bodily, emotional and social differences are mutually constitutive.