Deviance: Violations Of Social Norms

Most people don’t view themselves as deviant, even though committing deviant acts is not uncommon among our society. According to Patricia and Peter Adler, deviance is “violations of social norms” (Adler, 2012, p. 11), because of this not all acts of deviance are criminal (Adler, 2012). There are three different levels of deviance folkways, mores, and laws. Folkways are “simple everyday norms based on custom, tradition, or etiquette” (Adler, 2012, p. 11). An example of a folkway is “standard of dress, or eating behavior” (Adler, 2012, p. 11). These norm violations are not very serious, but people still try to avoid them. Mores are “norms based on broad societal morals whose infractions would generate more serious social condemnation” (Adler, …show more content…
Official statistics is described as, “numerical tabulations complied by government officials and employees of social service agencies in the course of doing their jobs” (Adler, 2012, p. 109). Official statistics are “considered an objective source of measurement” (Adler, 2012, p. 110). There are a few limitations when using official statistics a few being, “absent categorizes (a category that the government doesn’t see as deviant), validity, and self interpretation” (Adler, 2012). Survey research is best used when official statistics are to broad and social scientists are looking for more specific data on a smaller topic. An example used in the book Constructions of Deviance (2012), was wanted data on specific forms of self-harm admissions into hospitals (p.110). Social scientists couldn’t use the official statistics because it only recorded the broader admissions of all self-harm cases, it didn’t differentiate between the different kinds of self-harm (Adler, 2012). The best way to get this specific information is to give out a large questionnaire to a lot of people and gather up the data from the questionnaires. Survey research is really good at getting a lot of peoples opinions, because it’s fast, easy, and can be giving to a huge sample (Adler, 2012). There are limitations to this method as well, although surveys are great for large amounts of people, one can …show more content…
There ages being 20 or 21. The interviews took place in different spaces, outside, in the library, and in my room. I asked these individuals to discuss their first time smoking with me. All of my participants were very open about the subject. After my simple demographic questions; age and race. I asked how their families view smoking marijuana; Most of my participants reported their parents view on smoking marijuana negative. There were 2 cases of fathers accepting it, and 1 case where the parents still saw it as negative but understood why their son participated in smoking. This is when I then asked for them to share their first time smoking. I let them tell me their story and then I followed up by asking more detailed questions about the situation. Two of the guys started smoking significantly earlier than the rest of my sample one was 12, the other 14. Two other participants, one male and one female, first time smoking was their senior year of high school both were 18 years old at the time. The other two girls smoked for the first time in college, one being 18 the other 19. With the exception of the one who smoked when he was 12, the others first smoked with a small group of friends, ranging from one other person to 5 other people. The 12 year-old still smoked with a small group of people, they just happened to be his older sister and her boyfriend. My study tried to focus on why these