Trent Murguia
Social Deviance 211
6/10/2017
Social Deviance Essay
“The function of sociology as of every science is to reveal what is hidden” is an encompassing statement of sociology and the world by Pierre Bourdieu. Sociology is the study of society by people searching for answers in the atrophy of social order and seeking a way to improve it. Men and women who study this proclaim theories and ideas on how social organization is dictated, followed, and deviated from. Naturally these views are broad and describe large amounts of people and therefore are able to make future predictions as well as explanations for social actions. These strengths of sociology as also its biggest weakness as it is often hard to implement changes necessary to
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Much like the tide of the ocean it is easier to understand it than change it. This lack of causation proof means there will always be doubters who debate the validity of these theories.
While social deviance is one of the largest sub-genres of sociology because it is often the most tracked and studied as people try to prevent future disturbances. The three theories that I learned from the most in this course are Emilie Durkheim’s Anomie theory, Ivan Nye and Travis Hirsichi’s social control theory and Howard Beckner on the labeling theory. While all three of these various theories have multiple contributing authors and studiers it is these four gentlemen that spoke loudest and had the biggest impact on my personal understanding of social deviance. Emilie Durkheim along with Max Weber and Karl Marx were the pioneers that helped establish sociology as we know it today however what the focus is on is his study of Anomie Theory. He stated that it is when society “fails to effectively regulate the expectations or behaviors of its members.” This is a hugely important topic that is discussed throughout the rest of the text book as it shows how a community can grow frustrated with the social restrictions and seeks to deviate from the norms in order to meet their needs. People