Study Of Deviance Research Articles

Book Reviews : The Study of Deviance: Perspectives and Problems Don C. Gibbons and Joseph F. Jones, Engle wood-Cliffs, Prentice-Hall, 1975, pp. 216. No price available

Book Reviews : The Study of Deviance: Perspectives and Problems Don C. Gibbons and Joseph F. Jones, Engle wood-Cliffs, Prentice-Hall, 1975, pp. 216. No price available

E. E. Cummings and Ungrammar: A Study of Syntactic Deviance in his Poems.

E. E. Cummings and Ungrammar: A Study of Syntactic Deviance in his Poems.

The Study of Deviance―Perspectives and Problems―

The Study of Deviance―Perspectives and Problems―

Naturalistic Approaches to the Study of Deviance

Naturalistic Approaches to the Study of Deviance

The Study of Delinquency Areas: A Social Geographical Approach

Geographical interest in forms of social deviance is of comparatively recent origin, despite the fact that the relevance of spatial qualities has long been recognized. The concept of delinquency area remains a viable part of the literature and deserves closer attention by social geographers. Although analyses at the aggregate scale, based upon published statistics, remain valid and have considerable potential, there is a need to form new research strategies which both conduct analyses at the individual scale and improve the quality of data. Such a research strategy has been developed in a study of Cardiff and a set of research hypotheses relating to area differences, primarily in terms of attitudes and forms of behaviour, are tested. Results suggest that area differences exist and that the social geographical perspective is highly relevant to research in this field. A RESEARCH interest by professional geographers in the field of deviance studies is of comparatively recent origin,1 despite the fact that other disciplines have often recognized the relevance of spatial factors. Definitions of social deviance refer to normative rules for behaviour which in some ways have been infringed.2 Whilst social deviance is a generic term and there is little case for ignoring its typologies, there are grounds for recognizing broad bases of similarity and the fact that specific forms of deviance are subsets of the whole to which common methodologies and conceptual frameworks may apply. Juvenile delinquency is a particular form of social deviance which involves the transgression of societal laws by young offenders;3 it is itself capable of further differentiation by parameters such as degree of seriousness of the offence. Most analyses of crime and delinquency rest upon official sources of data, the reliability and comprehensiveness of which have been the subject of considerable debate.4 Whatever their merits, these data sets provide the only sources of statistics and have to form the bases of much research. A recent research project in Cardiff has considered the spatial qualities of delinquent behaviour on several fronts.s Access to data from several official sources allowed the calculation of delinquency rates for small areas of the city and these have formed a basis for study of areal and ecological characteristics. The emphasis in this particular paper is upon that part of the overall project in which an attempt was made to advance beyond the established strategies of quantitative analyses of aggregate statistics in order to demonstrate how attitudes and forms of behaviour could be studied in the context of social geographical research. This has involved the establishment of an area sampling framework from which survey areas were selected for detailed investigation.6 Whilst the procedure is not novel and is soundly based in geographical literature,7 its application in this context has innovative qualities. The paper considers the ecological tradition in crimihology, discusses the possibilities of a behavioural approach, develops the particular research strategy employed with the related research hypotheses, and evaluates the results from the survey of selected areas in Cardiff. THE ECOLOGICAL TRADITION IN CRIMINOLOGY The fact that crime and delinquency display marked areal and ecological characteristics, in common with many other forms of social deviance, has been recognized for some considerable

Gay Baths and the Social Organization of Impersonal Sex

The conditions described by males as ideal for impersonal sex include protection; ample, accessible opportunities; a known, shared, and organized reality; bounding of the experience; congeniality; and a comfortable physical setting. This paper examines gay baths in relation to these conditions. It also develops—from the male participants' perspective—a general model of the successful territorial and interactional organization of impersonal sex. Finally, the findings are related to the conceptualization of social organization, the market mentality, and the study of deviance.

THE INTERACTIONIST PERSPECTIVE Some Things Hagan Didn't Tell Us

Abstract This paper is concerned with the implications of Hagan's negative assessment of the contributions of symbolic interactionism to the study of deviance. The logic of evaluating selected seminal works without reference to recent contributions of the symbolic interactionists in deviance and other areas is challenged.

Major Developments in the Sociological Study of Deviance

During the past decade there have been four major developments in the sociology of deviance. First, interest in reknowned theories has gradually declined. Second, the predominant research concern is no longer with rates of deviance or deviants but rather with reactions to deviance. Third, far more attention is now devoted to criminal law, with a special emphasis on political considerations. Fourth, a new conception of deviance has emerged. This survey concentrates on the new conception, because it now occupies center stage and is closely intertwined with other major developments.

Deviants as Active Participants in the Labeling Process: The Visibly Handicapped

Studies of deviance from a labeling perspective have emphasized the reaction of those labelled deviant and tended to neglect their active participation in determining the imposition and the substance of a deviant label and role. Interviews with adults who had recently been physically handicapped by injury or illness illustrate how choice about the content of a deviant identity is systematically related to the duration of the deviance and the social context of the labeling process, in this instance sociable encounters and encounters with agents of social control (physical therapists). Although conclusions are based on information about the physically handicapped, the delineated processes are applicable to the study of other types of deviance and provide an important addition to the labeling perspective.

Sex research and social change.

The history of scientific sex research which emerged at the turn of the century with the exemplary work of Sigmund Freud and Havelock Ellis has been complexly interactive with changing general social conditions, specific trends in sexual conduct, the content of sexual ideologies, and the developing techniques of scientific inquiry. The earliest sex researchers, although serving to bring sexuality out of the Victorian cold and into the center of human development based their views of sexuality on control-repression and drive models. The Freudian tradition was especially influential in general intellectual matters and was probably the most important in the development of twentieth-century sexual ideologies. Beginning in the 1920s and culminating in the work of Kinsey in the 1940s and 1950s, a tradiition of social bookkeeping began focusing on the sexual behavior of relatively normal persons. Methodologically such studies moved away from the case history and from populations who were defined as criminal or neurotic. At the same time, general social changes were occurring that were directly affecting the rates and directions of sexual conduct in the society. The work of Alfred Kinsey charted these changes and in turn influenced public attitudes, public policy, and research interests during the 1950s and 1960s. The work of other researchers began to fill in the picture of sexual conduct in the society from a survey point of view, and some workers began studies in sexual deviance that focused anew on homosexuality and prostitution. The work of William Masters and Virginia Johnson served to open the door to studies of sexual anatomy and physiology by applying well-known techniques to the laboratory study of the sexual. While the biological tradition is still strong in the discussion of the sexual, new emphases are being placed on a cognitive-social learning persepctive that emphasizes the nonbiological factors in sexual development. Major changes have occurred in the sexual backdrop of the society in the 1960s, and while changes in sexual conduct have been less than revolutionary, they have occurred in a number of areas (contraception, abortion) that have directly influenced societal practices. Sex research and the sex researcher have played an important role in providing benchmarks for sexual practices, illuminating general understanding, and providing the content for ideiolicaal debates about the right and wrong of sexuality in the society. In few areas of research have researchers had such an important role in the debate over the measning and significance of the behavior they have studied.

The Methodological Implications of Symbolic Interactionism for the Study of Deviance

While the general theoretical and methodological implications of symbolic interactionism are commonly understood, there have been few attempts to directly apply this perspective to the study of deviance and deviant behaviour. It is my intention to briefly review the major theoretical and methodological assumptions of symbolic interactionism1 and then to indicate how an interactionist view of deviance and what may be termed the labelling encounter can be implemented through close-up naturalistic studies.

Beyond Mead: The Societal Reaction to Deviance

I should say parenthetically that reading the essay left me spelled by the beauty of its words and niceties of expression, as well as overwhelmed by its sense of prophecy. It recalled me to an old auctorial ideal espoused by James Branch Cabell, namely that we should write beautifully of things as they are. But having had time to cast off Manning's spell, I conclude that sociologists sometimes write beautifully of things as they are not and that in striving for rhetorical symmetry their conclusions may go beyond what facts will support. In this case I must object that the allegations of its sadness and senility ignore the theoretical potential of deviance sociology, its continuing research output, its influence on the diversion movement in criminal justice, and its striking impact on younger, highly articulate sociologists in Britain. Granting the slow stain and constant erosion of all ideas, it seems to me that even with age deviance sociology still is majestic in decay. But without further pause on the decadence issue, I would like to deal with what may cause some of the faithful to cry sacrilege, namely the deficiencies of G. H. Mead's conception of symbolic interaction and their implications for the study of deviance. My purpose is not to add to the theoretical confusion but to clear some of it away, and hopefully free up sociological energies to exploit in the measure it deserves its least worked area, namely the societal reaction. In order to maxi-

Sex, Nonconformity and Influence

Laboratory studies of status and deviance have concentrated on achieved rather than ascribed status. Ascribed status has been investigated in the laboratory in the context of such things as status congruence (Sampson, 1969), performance expectations (Berger et al., 1972), and prejudice and discrimination (Katz, 1970). These studies indicate that low ascribed status tends to handicap individuals who want to achieve status within a group. The concern in this study is less a question of what it takes for people having low ascribed status to gain acceptance, but rather what they must do in order to be permitted the same defects, flaws, and privileges allowed those we truly consider equals. This study explores the ascribed status of female in an all male group, and the effect of such ascribed status on ability to violate group procedural norms. Previous studies suggest that one earns the right to violate certain norms by contributing such valued behaviors as conformity and competence to the group, and that the amount of behavioral leeway permitted a given member is a function of the value of his actual or

Play activities of normal and effeminate boys.

A sixty-four-ite m parent-report Games Inventory was constructed to measure play patterns in normal and gender-deviant boys. Three scales (Feminine, Preschool Games; Masculine, Nonathletic Games; and Athletic Games) were found in cross-validat ional studies to be internally consistent and relatively independent, to correlate significantly with external measures, to differentiate significantly between normal and gender-disturbed boys, and to show a significant normal developmental trend with age. In addition, the Athletic Games scale correlated significantly with degree of gender disturbance, as rated by clinicians. These findings have implications for the process by which deviant gender behavior develops, as well as for its diagnosis or early identification. There are several different means for measuring a normal child's gender typing (see Mischel, 1970, for a discussion of such measuring instruments). However, in light of the currently expanding interest in the study of children's gender deviance, both as a means of understanding normal development and as a clinical problem, there exists a need for instruments relevant to abnormal gender typing. While it may be that instruments validated and used within normal ranges of gender are useful for this purpose, it is necessary to prove empirically that they can meaningfully and reliably differentiate normal from abnormal samples. Two recent studies have contributed toward the development of instruments relevant to deviant gender typing in boys, as well as to empirical knowledge about the nature of extreme effeminacy. Green, Fuller, and Rutley (1972) showed that the It Scale for children and the Draw-a-Person Test, two measures of cognitive aspects of gender which have been widely used with normal children, do indeed differentiate extremely effeminate from normal boys. Bates, Rentier,

Role‐playing substitutions among homosexuals

The social relationships that exist among individuals in deviant counter-cultures is still not well understood by those not involved in such activities. Social scientists have made some attempts at research into deviant behavior and have produced a few very good studies from time to time, but the field has scarcely been touched on to any great extent. Part of this problem is no doubt due to the difficulty of gathering reliable material. This fact is, of course, true in many kinds of research, but the clandestine and often illegal nature of deviant behavior often makes respondents who engage in it less than candid with interviewers, putting an additional burden on the researcher. Another reason for ignorance of deviant life-styles is that what research has been done has been inadequate and has often skirted the issues. Studies of deviance are inadequate in two ways for the theorizing that has to be done: 1. There are just not enough studies in the first place, and 2. Those that have been done do not provide enough facts about the lives of deviants as they live them. (Becker, 1963) This ignorance unhappily exists among professionals as well as lay people. Homosexuals are possibly the single largest deviant counter-culture in this country, but very often are not visible in the sense that some other deviants may be, except for the extreme overt types. According to earlier research on sexual deviants, homosexuals form social groups of varying degrees of cohesion and carry on many and sometimes nearly all of their social relationships within these groups. Studies have also revealed a number of the roles that are played by various individuals within the homosexual in-groups, but we are still far from an understanding what functions many of these roles have for the individuals concerned. One theory is that deviants who associate in a counter-cultural ambience attempt to duplicate as nearly as possible many of the most important social roles and interactions that exist in the normal society. If so, this phenomenon would imply that the expected social roles and statuses that have been accepted by the larger society are socialized very strongly into the young, and that even if individuals

Crime and the Division of Labor: Testing a Durkheimian Model

This study provided an empirical examination of an unsubstantiated but generally accepted proposition found in Durkheim's The Division of Labor in Society. The proposition that deviance or crime will increase concomitant with an increasing division of labor has found wide acceptance in both deviance and organizational studies without having been empirically verified. In order to test this proposition and four corollary suppositions, an examination was made of collective life utilizing data similar to those relied on by Durkheim in his examination of the etiology of suicide. In Durkheimian terms, then, this study involved an examination of degrees of collective order (operationalized as crime rates) as found within different collectivites (communities) possessing differential degrees of functional integration (division of labor). The primary hypothesis was largely refuted, but alternative interpretations of the findings suggest that the model cannot be discounted.

Sociological Work: Method and Substance.

Howard S. Becker is a leading contemporary sociologist who interprets society as collective action and sociology, therefore, as the study of collective action. This volume explores the theory and methods necessary to study collective action and social interaction. Becker includes most of his work on theory and method that has not previously appeared in book form. It reflects his unique way of thinking about and studying society. The first part of the book treats methodological problems as problems of social interaction and lists a series of research problems requiring analytic attention. The second part illustrates Becker's approach through full reports on two of his major research projects. Four theoretical statements on how people change comprise the third part, and the fourth part includes important contributions to the study of deviance. These essays illustrate the need to study deviance as part of the general study of society, not as an isolated specialty. Sociological Work is an important statement of the distinctive theoretical and methodological views associated with the Chicago School of Sociology; it shows a deep concern with the first-hand study of processes and human consequences of collective action and interaction. This illuminating volume is an engaging introduction to some of the issues of importance to sociologists and those interested in the studies of collective action and deviance, and it is well adapted to use in courses in these areas.

On Misunderstanding the Concept of Commitment: A Theoretical Clarification

Perhaps because of its popularity in everyday discourse, the complex nature of commitment is rarely appreciated by those social scientists who use this concept in their work. Concealed in this idea are two distinct, albeit related, dimensions, which are, with very few exceptions, unintentionally fused when one or the other is treated alone. These two dimensions, although known by other names, may be called value commitmnent and forced or continuance commitment.' A recent empirical investigation by Ritzer and Trice (1969) exemplifies this confounding of the two major dimensions of commitment. The aim of this paper is to present a clear statement of the fundamental differences between value commitment and continuance commitment, while simultaneously examining the ramifications of the failure to distinguish these two ideas in Ritzer and Trice's study. Although the investigation under attack falls under the sociological rubric of occupations, most, if not all, of the following comments can be applied with equal validity to the study of deviance, another area in which the concept of commitment has received, explicitly or implicitly, widespread use.

Hustlers, Beats, and Others

The classic study of deviance, from poolrooms and hustlers to beats, jazz musicians, and pornographers.

Youthful sex offenders: An epidemiologic comparison of types∗

Comparative studies of sexual deviance among children are few in number and limited in scope (Atcheson, 1954; Cook, 1934; Doshay, 1943; McCord, 1962). For example, there have been no investigations of adolescent deviants comparable to investigations of adult sexual deviants such as those carried out by Gebhard and his associates (1962) or by Ellis and Brancale (1956). Findings from these and similar studies indicate the presence of differences-both social and psychological-between adults who commit sex crimes and those who commit other types of crimes. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of juvenile offenders-not because there are no differences between juveniles who commit sexual offenses and those who commit other offenses, but because the data are insufficient to warrant definitive conclusions one way or the other. Without question, a multitude of differences exist between delinquent and nondelinquent youths-differences which are well documented. For example, delinquency has its greatest concentration in the most physically dilapidated areas of the city-the slums (Morris, 1958; Shaw, 1929). Males commit more offenses than do femalesfour to five times as many. Youths from ethnic minorities-Negroes, Latin Americans, Puerto Ricans, etc., -contribute significantly more than their share of delinquent acts (Blue, 1948; Moses, 1947; Von Hentig, 1945). Older youths commit more offenses than do younger youths (U. S. Dept. of Health, 1959). One outstanding characteristic of adolescent behavior is its group orientation. This same pattern is extremely pronounced among