Deviance in Institutions
I have had many roles in my life: daughter, friend, employee, and student. Though being a daughter, a friend, and an employee have get meaning in my life, I find being a student is the most important role I have attained thus far. This is not only because I have been a student since three or four years old, but because it is being a student that will get me to be the woman I want to be in the future. However, with this role has come with many titles by family, friends, and especially school administrations. In an institution such as school, no matter what academic level, there will be teachers that label the students in some way: class clown, honors student, teacher’s pet, failure, deviant, et cetera. These labels …show more content…
To be specific, in elementary when I was labeled as the child that did not try hard enough to being a member of the Honors Society in Jr. High and High School. A similar process happened in college, however, I feel my experience in college could be seen as more “deviant” since I was old enough to know what I was doing. I was kicked out of UT for low grades and decided to go to Owens Community College to avoid telling my parents about my poor choices and grades. After transferring to Owens, I realized how nervous I was about school. I feel this anxiety I was feeling is similar to the initial confusion stage in the Paradox of the Bisexual Identity (Weinberg and Williams and Pryor, 1983). In the initial confusion stage “many people interviewed said they have experienced a period of considerable confusion, doubt, and struggle regarding their sexual identity…” Which is what I felt. I was confused about school, doubting myself, and struggling to see that I was a good student. I was trying to justify this deviant labeled. Trying to find reasons why I skipped classes and ignored studying to hang out with friends. What I could not figure out was how to justify that I was making myself fail out of college? How can I tell my parents “I was dropped out because I wanted to hang out in the food court with my friends instead of attending class”? They …show more content…
Secondary deviance is when your actions become discovered and they are labeled (Lemort, 1967). McLorg and Taub (1987) did research on anorexia nervosa and bulimia. They used primary and secondary deviance in their research to state that some of those with anorexia or bulimia were either primary or secondary deviants when it came to their illness. This could also be said for schools. Primary deviance could be someone that skips class once or twice, or gets an F on a paper. While secondary deviance would be more noticeable. They would be caught skipping or fail a whole class rather than just a paper. For secondary deviance to occur, the student needs to admit and come to the realization that their deviance was disrupting their education to the administration or their parents. To the administration, this could be easy. They already have records of your failed grades. To their parents this may be harder. You may need to find a way to “save face”. Saving face is an attempt to salvage an interactional performance that hasn’t gone as planned (Goffman, 1959). In this predicament, how do you save face? It is not easy to tell your parents that you failed, especially when this is something that they have been bragging about to their friends. How do to tell them you are labeled a
I have had many roles in my life: daughter, friend, employee, and student. Though being a daughter, a friend, and an employee have get meaning in my life, I find being a student is the most important role I have attained thus far. This is not only because I have been a student since three or four years old, but because it is being a student that will get me to be the woman I want to be in the future. However, with this role has come with many titles by family, friends, and especially school administrations. In an institution such as school, no matter what academic level, there will be teachers that label the students in some way: class clown, honors student, teacher’s pet, failure, deviant, et cetera. These labels …show more content…
To be specific, in elementary when I was labeled as the child that did not try hard enough to being a member of the Honors Society in Jr. High and High School. A similar process happened in college, however, I feel my experience in college could be seen as more “deviant” since I was old enough to know what I was doing. I was kicked out of UT for low grades and decided to go to Owens Community College to avoid telling my parents about my poor choices and grades. After transferring to Owens, I realized how nervous I was about school. I feel this anxiety I was feeling is similar to the initial confusion stage in the Paradox of the Bisexual Identity (Weinberg and Williams and Pryor, 1983). In the initial confusion stage “many people interviewed said they have experienced a period of considerable confusion, doubt, and struggle regarding their sexual identity…” Which is what I felt. I was confused about school, doubting myself, and struggling to see that I was a good student. I was trying to justify this deviant labeled. Trying to find reasons why I skipped classes and ignored studying to hang out with friends. What I could not figure out was how to justify that I was making myself fail out of college? How can I tell my parents “I was dropped out because I wanted to hang out in the food court with my friends instead of attending class”? They …show more content…
Secondary deviance is when your actions become discovered and they are labeled (Lemort, 1967). McLorg and Taub (1987) did research on anorexia nervosa and bulimia. They used primary and secondary deviance in their research to state that some of those with anorexia or bulimia were either primary or secondary deviants when it came to their illness. This could also be said for schools. Primary deviance could be someone that skips class once or twice, or gets an F on a paper. While secondary deviance would be more noticeable. They would be caught skipping or fail a whole class rather than just a paper. For secondary deviance to occur, the student needs to admit and come to the realization that their deviance was disrupting their education to the administration or their parents. To the administration, this could be easy. They already have records of your failed grades. To their parents this may be harder. You may need to find a way to “save face”. Saving face is an attempt to salvage an interactional performance that hasn’t gone as planned (Goffman, 1959). In this predicament, how do you save face? It is not easy to tell your parents that you failed, especially when this is something that they have been bragging about to their friends. How do to tell them you are labeled a