Sociology Final

Deviance

Age – Official crime rates rise sharply during adolescence and peak in the late teens. They begin to fall after that.

Gender – Men are arrested more than twice as much for property crimes than woman. With violent crime, the disparity is even greater, over 80% committed by males.

Social Class – Most research indicates that criminality is more widespread among people of lower social position.

Race – Statistics show that blacks are more likely to be arrested than whites. You author states three reasons for this:• African Americans have a higher rate of poverty• Single parenting may contribute because kids are less supervised.• White cops may be more willing to arrest blacks over whites.

Conflict analysis argues that who or what is labeled deviant depends on which categories of people hold power in a society. When we see a homeless man or woman on the street, we have the tendency to label them deviant or a drug dealer or someone with mental problems. There MUST be something wrong with them right? Not always. Maybe there is nothing wrong with other than the fact they are powerless.Karl Marx argued that the law supports the interests of the rich. A good example of this is the Michael Milken case. Milken was a stockbroker on Wall Street who made almost 600 million dollars a year (that’s over a million a day!) He was convicted in the late 1980s for bank fraud and spent less than a year in prison. The Michael Milken case is an example of white collar crime – a crime committed by people in the course of their occupations. Even when those in power get convicted, there’s only a 50/50 chance they will get jail time. So, Marx is right in some respect – the law does support the interests of the rich.

According to Emile Durkheim, there is nothing abnormal about deviance. In fact he says that it performs four essential functions:1) Deviance affirms cultural values and norms. Any definition of virtue rests on an opposing idea of vice: In other words, there can be no good without evil.2) Responding to deviance clarifies moral boundaries. By defining some individuals as deviant, people draw a boundary between right and wrong. For example, when a student gets caught cheating and the professor calls him or her out on it in class, that lets other students know it will not be tolerated.3) Responding to deviance brings people together. A prime example of this is 9/11. The whole country was brought together by the 9/11 attacks to affirm their patriotism and punish those responsible.4) Deviance encourages social change. Your book mentions how rock-and-roll was labeled deviant in the 1950s but became main stream by the 1960s. Hip-hop music seems to following the same path in respectability as an art form.

The symbolic-interaction approach explains how people come to see deviance in everyday situations. The central contribution of symbolic-interaction analysis is labeling theory, the idea that deviance and conformity result not so much from what people do as from how others respond to those actions. Labeling theory stresses the relativity of deviance, meaning that people may define the same behavior in any number of ways. For example, a college student takes a sweater off the back of a roommate’s chair and packs it for a weekend trip. Is this: borrowing, carelessness or theft?

Milken was a stockbroker on Wall Street who made almost 600 million dollars a year (that’s over a million a day!) He was convicted in the late 1980s for bank fraud and spent less than a year in prison.

Social Conflict Analysis

• is a description of all religious movements that seek to regain and publicly institutionalize traditional, social and cultural values that are usually rooted in the teachings of a sacred text or written dogma. There are 3 characteristics of a militant fundamentalist:
• 1. They are convinced that their religion is the correct one.
• 2. They believe their religion is under attack.
• 3. If they are unable to impose their beliefs peacefully, they may justify other more extreme actions against perceived oppressors, such as terrorist acts.

• Terrorism - acts of violence used as political strategy.There are 4 common tactics that terrorists use to impose their beliefs:
• 1. They take civilian hostages
• 2. They use abuse, murder and the kidnapping of military personnel.
• 3. They attack civilians in countries far from their theater of operation.
• 4. They repeatedly attack embassies and other diplomatic installations.

• Terrorist/Extremist Groups
• Christianity – KKK, Skinheads
• Islam – Al Qaeda, Hamas
• Buddhism – Buddhist Sinhalese (Sri Lanka)
• Hinduism – Tamil Tigers
• Judaism – The Kahane Movement

• 1. Perceived threats. Nations mobilize in response to a perceived threat to their people, territory, or culture. Leaders justified the U.S. led military campaign against Iraq, for example, by stressing the threat Saddam Hussein posed to the United States.
• 2. Social problems. When internal problems cause widespread frustration at home, a nation’s leaders may try to divert public attention by attacking an external “enemy” as a form of scape-goating.
• 3. Political objectives. Poor nations, such as Vietnam, have used wars to end foreign domination. Powerful countries such as the United States, may benefit from a periodic show of force.
• 4. Moral objectives. Nations rarely claim they are going to war to gain wealth and power. Instead, their leaders infuse military campaigns with moral urgency. For example, calling the Iraq invasion, Operation Iraqi Freedom.
• 5. The absence of alternatives. A fifth factor promoting war is the lack of alternatives. Preventing war was one reason the United Nations was created. Although it still tries to maintain international peace, the UN has had limited success in resolving tensions among nations and preventing conflict between nations.

Political ideology is a set of beliefs about the types of policies government ought to pursue

• A Liberal is a person who:
• 1. Favors more government regulation of private industry.
• 2. Supports government welfare programs.
• 3. Supports minority rights
• 4. Favors less regulation of private social conduct.

• A Conservative is a person who:
• 1. Favors a more limited and local government.
• 2. Favors less government regulation of the markets and business
• 3. Favors more traditional social norms
• 4. Favors stricter penalties toward criminals.

a social institution found in societies that unites people in cooperative groups to oversee the bearing and raising of children.

Endogamy is marriage between people of the same social category (i.e. age, race, religion, social class).By contrast, there’s what’s called exogamy. Exogamy is marriage between people of different social classes.

• 1. Socialization – the family is the first and most important setting for child rearing. Parents help children become well adjusted, contributing members of society.
• 2. Regulation of sexual activity. Incest Taboo – a norm forbidding sexual relations or marriage between certain relatives. Reproduction between close relatives can mentally and physically impair offspring. Also, from a sociological perspective, the regulation of incest is important because reproduction between close relatives would hopelessly confuse kinship ties and threaten the social order.
• 3. Social placement – Families help maintain social organization. Parents confer their own social identity in terms of race, ethnicity, religion and social class on their children at birth.
• 4. Material and Emotional Security – Families provide physical protection, emotional support, and financial assistance.

Incest Taboo – a norm forbidding sexual relations or marriage between certain relatives.

• 1. Property and Inheritance – Conflict theorists trace the origin of the family to men’s need to identify heirs as they could transmit property to their sons.
• 2. Patriarchy – A family or society in which authority is vested in males. In a patriarchy, men must control the sexuality of women in order to know their heirs.
• 3. Race and Ethnicity – Most societies encourage endogamy (marrying within one’s social order) and this perpetuates racial and ethnic hierarchies.

• 1. Social cohesion – Religion unites people through shared symbolism, values, and norms. Religious thought establishes morality and rules of fair play that makes organized social life possible.
• 2. Social Control – Society uses religious ideas to promote conformity. Our leaders ask for God’s blessing implying that their actions are just and right, therefore the people believe his actions are just and right, which promotes social control and a feeling that the world is not in chaos.
• 3. Religion provides meaning and purpose – Religious belief offers the comforting sense that our brief lives serve some greater purpose. It gives us hope when tragedy enters our lives. It is for this reason that we mark major life transitions such as birth, marriage and death with religious observances.

• 1. Religion encourages people to endure without complaint the social problems of this world while they look hopefully to a better world to come. By not complaining, it releases those responsible for social inequality from any responsibility to fix it.
• 2. Religion and social inequality are also linked through gender. Virtually all the world’s major religions are patriarchal ( men are in control).

War is the organized, armed conflict among the people of two or more nations.