Death of Sociology of Deviance

Sociologically, deviance is the violation of formally enacted rules and/or the violation of informal social norms governing behavior, belief, and appearance (e.g., sexual promiscuity, abusing alcohol, being obese, believing that the bodies and minds of some earthlings have been taken over by aliens). We may further distinguish definitions of deviance based on abstract violations of rules, norms, and/or laws (the “normative” definition) from those actions, beliefs, and conditions that actually have attracted stigma, condemnation, offense, and other negative or [Page 173]punishing reactions (the “reactive” or “reactivist” definition). The normative definition argues that actions can be deviant even if they are not observed and even if their violators are not condemned—that is, the quality of deviance resides within the discrepancy between the norms and the actions. In contrast, the reactivist definition insists that to qualify as deviance, an audience must observe and negatively react to the actor's normative transgression; hence, the quality of deviance resides within the social reaction. Importantly, deviance varies as to how serious a violation it is judged to be, and the size and substantiality of the audiences who make that judgment.

Contrary to some critics, sociologists have long ago rejected the notion that deviance is a pejorative, disparaging, or pathology-oriented term. Instead, sociologists observe and take note of such disparagement; we may or may not agree with society's negative judgment, but when it is expressed, that is a sociological fact, and it is our responsibility to take note of it. More than half a century ago, Marshall Clinard (1957) settled on the term deviance (and its cognate, deviant behavior) to refer to “certain deviations from social norms which encounter disapproval and to which theory and concepts derived from sociology and social psychology may be applied” (p. vii)—and the designation stuck. Although Clinard's early formulation of the field did not spell out or focus on the reactivist approach to perceived wrongdoing, it did contain the germ of contemporary conceptualizations. No critic has offered a workable alternative to the terms deviance or deviant.

Since its inception in the 1920s, the field of deviance remained a stodgy, not especially exciting younger brother or sister of the larger field of social problems, until 1963, when Howard S. Becker published Outsiders. This book jet-propelled the field of the sociology of deviance into the limelight of academic prominence and made it seem exciting and fresh, almost a revolutionary way of looking at a newly emerging subject. But practically from the beginning, the sociology of deviance became a target of criticism, much of it savage and denunciatory. But the price of academic prominence is attracting critics, and to remain strong, a field's proponents must rise to meet and respond to intellectual challenges.

In 1994, Colin Sumner, approaching the matter from a radical perspective, wrote a volume-length “obituary” for the sociology of deviance. The field arose, Sumner argued, as a mechanism of social control, to defend the interests of the rich and powerful. Given that diversity now prevails, the field no longer functions to keep wrongdoing in check. Polished off by the critiques of radicals, “critical” theorists, and the “new” criminologists, the sociology of deviance dropped dead; it is now, Sumner declared, a corpse.

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