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Functionalist View Of Deviance Essay

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Functionalist View Of Deviance Essay
Deviance is an action or behavior that violates social or cultural norms. It can be categorized into two categories, formal and informal. Formal deviance is a criminal act as dictated by the law. Social norms dictate informal deviance. The functionalist perspective of deviance is that crime is inevitable because not everyone can or will be equally committed. A lot of social change seems to begin with a form of deviance. For example, the Civil Rights Movement. People such as Rosa Parks who spoke out against segregation by simply going against what was customary at the time were performing acts of deviance. The conflict perspective of deviance is that it does not go along with social institutions. The criminal justice system is more …show more content…
Those in lower classes tend to be more likely to have more negative labels attached to them. With a more negative label people are more likely to deviate because of the label they were given. As far as perceiving, those in the upper classes are more likely to be seen as “good” so they do not get in as much trouble as others.
The perception of deviance according to race is usually based on racial stereotypes that have been embedded into us as a society. Even if people try to say it is not there, it is there like a shadow, maybe not always visible but always there.
The perception of deviance according to gender is that females are less likely to commit a crime than males. Society has put males into this defined box of being the gender that will be more competitive and aggressive. This is not always the case. However, as a society we do still raise girls to be gentle and motherly and we do not do the same for boys.
Depending on the culture and nationality of someone, the perception of deviance could be very different. In certain countries, things that we would consider law breaking here in the U.S. might be a part of their culture or is just not seen the same way there. Cultural norms are all different and it cannot be assumed that they will all be

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