SC030 :: Fall 2008
Deviance and Social Control
Tuesday, Thursday 4:30-5:45
Instructor:
Office:
Email:
Mailbox:
Office Hours:
Jared Del Rosso
McGuinn 410C
delrosso@bc.edu
McGuinn 410, MB#15
T/Th 3:00 – 4:00 & by
appointment
- Course Description Satisfies Social Sciences Core Requirement
May be taken as part of the Women's Studies Minor.
This course explores the social construction of boundaries between the "normal" and the so-called "deviant." It examines
the struggle between powerful forms of social control and what these exclude, silence, or marginalize. Of particular
concern is the relationship between dominant forms of religious, legal, and medical social control and gendered, racialized
and global economic structures of power. The course provides an in-depth historical analysis of theoretical perspectives
used to explain, study and control deviance, as well as ethical-political inquiry into such matters as religious excess, crime,
madness, corporate and governmental wrong-doing, and sexual subcultures that resist dominant social norms.
- Course Objectives This is a core course in sociology. As such, the course is designed to
(1)
Raise the perennial questions of the sociology of deviance and social control.
In this course, we seek to understand how societies construct the boundaries between those behaviors
and identities that are normal, acceptable, good, healthy, moral, and/or natural and those that are deviant, crazy,
bad, sick, evil and/or unnatural. As we think about how society is made possible by the drawing of boundaries
around the normal, we will also consider the historical and cultural shifting of these boundaries.
(2)
Present historical, as well as culturally diverse, perspectives on deviance and social control.
The course is organized around the examination of major historical and sociological perspectives on
deviance. While each perspective has had a kind of theoretical heyday, none has disappeared from our
contemporary understandings of deviance. Writings by contemporary authors, periodic discussion of current
events, and the reflections and analyses of class members will show how each perspective continues to shape the
our current understanding of deviance and control.
Many readings in the course examine the unequal effects of social control. Cultural diversity is brought
through the incorporation of readings on the topic of inclusion and exclusion and by engaging in a sociological
study of everyday interactions.
(3)
Demonstrate the various methodologies used in the sociological study of deviance.
Our examination of the perspectives will frequently highlight the particular methods employed by each
to understand, observe and measure deviance. Along with an understanding of deviance, each perspective offers
a particular methodology and strategy for controlling it. When considering a given perspective's approach to the
study of deviance and social control, we will reflect on the relevance of that theory's methodology to its findings.
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(4)
Challenge you to create a personal philosophy of deviance and social control.
Students in this course are encouraged to engage with the theoretical stances of the assigned authors and,
further, develop their own personal philosophy of deviance and social control. Students are encouraged to
articulate elements of their personal philosophy during discussions and in the writing component of the course.
*course objectives adapted from Aimee Van Wagenen's Fall 2006 SC030.01 Syllabus
- Course Requirements (1) Attendance and participation : 25% of your final grade
(2) In-class exams : 25% of your final grade
(3) Diagnostic Essay : 25% of your final grade
(4) Ethnographic Study & Essay : 25% of your final grade
(1) Attendance and participation (25% of your final grade)
All students are expected to attend class and participate in class discussions. While I will not regularly
take attendance, I will note frequent absences and this will affect your participation grade. Finally, I
expect all students to contribute to class discussions. Since there are approximately forty students in
our class, I do not expect all students to participate in all classes; however, I do expect consistent
contributions from all students. Keep in mind that adequate participation in class depends on adequate
preparation for class and your participation grade will be based on the relevance of your participation to
course readings and lectures.
I've found that students who attend my office hours raise important questions about course
assignments, course readings, course grading, and lectures. While I am not requiring students to make
an appointment with me, all students are strongly encouraged to attend my office hours at least once.
Meetings with me during my office hours will contribute to your participation grade.
I understand that for some students class participation can induce all sorts of anxieties. I encourage all
students to attend my offices to talk about strategies for participation , as well as our course material.
(2) In-class exams (25% of your final grade)
There are two in-class exams.
Exam #:
Topics Covered :
Date
% of final grade
Exam 1 :
Exam 2:
Topic 1 and 2
Topics 3, 4, and 5
9.25.2008
TBA
10
15
All exams may involve matching, multiple choice, and/or true/false questions.
(3) Diagnostic Essay (25% of your final grade)
Your diagnostic essay of approximately 5 pages is due on 11.18.2008. In your essay, you should use
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one or more sociological theories of deviance and social control to account for the events at Abu
Ghraib. Your essay should draw from our readings on sociological perspectives of deviance and social
control, with our readings and documentaries on Abu Ghraib as used as "data" to support your analysis.
(4) Ethnographic Study (25% of your final grade)
By 9.11.2008, you should begin an ethnographic study in which you document the "practical
accomplishment" of the normal and deviant in everyday life. To do so, you should choose a setting that
you can easily access and observe for thirty-minute periods. Over the course of the semester, you
should observe that setting ten times and, afterward, produce a memo of approximately 400-600 words
on your observations. You can, if you wish, supplement your observations and memos with
documentary evidence - such as photographs. You can, if you wish, choose a location in which you are
a participant in addition to an observer. If you choose such a location, you should also document your
participation in the accomplishment of normalcy and deviancy.
By 12.04.2008, you should submit your memos and evidence with a five page essay that analyzes the
practices by which social actors accomplished normalcy, deviancy, and social control in your setting.
You will receive a grade for both your memos and your response paper. Each is worth 12.5% of your
final grade. If you submit at least ten on-topic memos of approximately 400-600 words, you will
receive at least a 3.0 (B) on your memos Those journals that reference, when appropriate, course
readings, go beyond the minimum requirements of the assignment, consistently exhibit care for
observational details and rigorous sociological thinking may earn higher grades. Incomplete journals
will receive a grade below 3.0 (B), based on the quantity and quality of entries.
Course readings and lectures on 9.4.2008, 9.9.2008, 10.14.2008, and 11.13.2008-12.04.2008 will be
especially relevant for this project.
- Course Grading ScalesExams
94%-100%
90%-93%
87%-89%
84%-86%
80%-83%
77%-79%
74%-76%
70%-73%
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
A
AB+
B
BC+
C
Cetc.
Final Grade
3.85-4.0
3.50-3.84
3.15-3.49
2.85-3.14
A
AB+
B
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2.50-2.84
2.15-2:49
1.85-2.14
1.50-1.84
1:15 - 1.49
0.85 -1:14
0.50-0.84
< .50
BC+
C
CD+
D
DF
- Course Readings Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishment. ISBN: 9780915145973
Mark Danner, Torture and Truth. ISBN: 9781590171523
Erroll Morris, Standard Operating Procedure. ISBN: 9781594201325
You can find used copies of the assigned reading online, often at significantly lower prices than are the copies
available in local bookstores. Also, the three books are on reserve at the O’Neill library.
Readings marked with an “*” in the course schedule are available through online course reserves.
Note: Unless otherwise noted, readings should be completed by the date that they are assigned. Also, I reserve
the right to change readings with due notice.
- Course Schedule Topic One
Introducing the Sociology of Deviance & Social Control
(1) 9.2.2008 : Course Introduction
a. “V” from Adrienne Rich’s The Dream of a Common Language.
(2) 9.4.2008 : Introducing the Sociology of Deviance & Social Control
a. * Best, Joel. (2008.) “The Social Problems Process.” Social Problems. New York: W.W.
Norton, 3-28.
(3) 9.9.2008 : Introducing the Sociology of Deviance & Social Control
a. * Star, Susan Leigh. (1991.) Power, Technology, and the Phenomenology of Conventions: on
being allergic to onions. A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power, Technology and
Domination. edited by John Law. New York: Routledge. 26-56. HM15 .S545 no. 38
b. * Holstein, James A. (1993.) Social Constructionism and Social Problems Work. In
Reconsidering Social Constructionism. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 151-172.
HN28 .R43 1993
9.11.2008 : Sociology of Terrorism
a. Turk, Austin T. (2004.) "Sociology of Terrorism." Annual Review of Sociology. 30: 271-286.
Topic Two
Historical Perspectives
(1) 9.16.2008 : Social Control during an Age of Enlightenment
a. Beccaria, parts I-IV, VI, XII, XV, XVI, XX, XXII, XXIV.
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(2) 9.18.2008 : : The Panopticon & the Persistence of Surveillance
a. *Eghan, Danielle R. (2004.) "Eyeing the Scene: The Uses and (RE)uses of Surveillance
Cameras in an Exotic Dance Club." Critical Sociology. 30(2):299-319.
b. * Foucault, Michel. (1999.) Panopticism in Visual Culture: the reader. edited by Jessica
Evans and Stuart Hall. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 61-71.
O’Neill Stacks P93.5 .V55 1999
c. The End of Privacy.
(3) 9.23.2008 : Medicalizing Deviance & Social Control
a. * Conrad, Peter. (1975.) "The Discovery of Hyperkinesis: Notes on the Medicalization of
Deviant Behavior." Social Problems. 23(1): 12-21.
b. * Gould, Stephen Jay. (1985.) "Carrie Buck's Daughter." Constitutional
Commentary. 2: 331-339.
(4) 9.25.2008 : Medicalizing Deviance & Social Control
a. * Freud, Sigmund. (2007.) Civilization and Its Discontents in Classical Sociological Theory.
Edited by Craig Calhoun, et al. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 315-322.
ONL RES HM435 .C53 2007
9.30.2008 : Exam 1 : Topics One & Two
Topic Three
Sociological Perspectives on Deviance and Social Control
(1) 10.2.2008 : The Anomie Perspective
a. * Durkheim, Emile. (1951). "Anomic Suicide" in Suicide. New York: Macmillan
Publishing, 246-258. HV6545 .D812
b. * Merton, Robert K. (1938.) "Social Structure and Anomie." American Sociological
Review. 3:672-682.
(2) 10.07.2008 : The Learning Perspective
a. * Cloward, Richard A. (1959). "Illegitimate Means, Anomie, and Deviant Behavior."
American Sociological Review. 24(2): 164-176.
b. * Burgess, Robert L. and Ronald L. Akers. (1966.) "A Differential Association-
Reinforcement Theory of Criminal Behavior." Social Problems. 14(2): 128-147
(3) 10.09.2008 : Disorganization
a. * Kelling, George and James Q. Wilson. (1982.) Broken Windows.
Atlantic Monthly.
b. * Sampson, Robert J. and Stephen w. Raudenbush. (2004.) "Seeing Disorder:
Neighborhood Stigma and the Social Construction of "Broken Windows."
Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 67(4): 319-342.
(4) 10.14.2008 : The Labeling Perspective
a. * Paternoster, Raymond and Leeann Iovanni. (1989.) The Labeling perspective and
delinquency: An elaboration of the theory and an assessment of the evidence.
Justice Quarterly 6(3): 359-394.
Topic Four
Abu Ghraib: A Case Study in Deviance & Social Control
(1) 10.16.2008 : Introducing Abu Ghraib
a. Danner, Torture & Truth, Chapters I-III.
(2) 10.21.2008 - 10.28.2008 : Explaining Abu Ghraib
(I.) Please read at least three articles from this list.
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a. * Apel, Dora. 2005. "Torture Culture: Lynching Photographs and the Images of Abu
Ghraib." art journal. Summer, 89-100.
b. * Bennett, W. Lance, Regina G. Lawrence, and Steven Livingston. 2006. "None
Dare Call It Torture: Indexing the Limits of Press Independence in the Abu Ghraib
Scandal." Journal of Communication. 56: 467-485.
c. * Brown, Michelle. 2005. "'Setting the Conditions' for Abu Ghraib: The Prison
Nation Abroad." American Quarterly. 57(3): 973-997.
d. * Gordon, Avery F. 2006. "Abu Ghraib: Imprisonment and the war on terror."
Race & Class. 48: 42-59.
e. * Sontag, Susan. (May 23 2004.) "Regarding the Torture of Others."
The New York Times Magazine. Page 25.
(II.) Please read at least two articles from this list.
a. Danner, Mark. Military Police and Detention Operations, Interrogation Operations,
The Role of Military Police and Military Intelligence in Detention Operations, Appendix
G: The Schlesinger Report. Torture and Truth. (357-368, 394-399.)
b. * Ehrenreich, Barbara. 2007. Feminism's Assumptions Upended.
South Central Review. 24(1): 170-173.
d. * Fiske, Susan T., Lasana T. Harris, and Amy J.C. Cud. (2004.)
"SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: Why Ordinary People Torture Enemy Prisoners."
Science. 306(5701):1482-1483.
e. * Morris, Errol. (2007). "Will the Real Hooded Man Please Stand Up."
The New York Times.
<http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/15/will-the-real-hooded-man-please-stand-up/
#more-11>
f. * Zimbardo, Phillip G. 2004. "Power turns good soldiers into 'bad apples'."
Boston Globe.
<http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/05/09/
power_turns_good_soldiers_into_bad_apples/>
(4) 10.30.2008 - 11.11.2008: Standing Operating Procedure
a. Standard Operating Procedure
11.04.2008 ELECTION DAY: NO CLASS
Topic Five
The Sociology of Exclusion
(1.) 11.13.2008 - 11.18.2008 - The Others of Social Theory
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11.18.2008 : Diagnostic Essay Due
(I.) Please read (a), (b), (c) and at least one other articles between 11.13.2008 & 11.18.2008
a. * Simmel, Georg. (1971.) The Stranger. In On individuality and social
forms. Ed. by Donald N. Levine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
143-149. O’Neill Stacks HM136 .S64.
b. * Du Bois, W.E.B. (2007.) Of Our Spiritual Strivings. The Souls of Black
Folk. New York : Oxford University Press, 2-8. E185.6 .D797 2007b
c. * Goffman, Erving. (1997.) The Stigmatized Self. in The Goffman Reader. Edited
by Charles Lemert and Ann Branaman. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 73-80.
HM22.U6 G643 1997
d.* Bauman, Zygmunt. (1989.) The Ethics of Obedience. Modernity and the
Holocaust. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 151-168. D804.3 .B377 1989
e. *Collins, Patricia Hill. (1986.) Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological
Significance of Black Feminist Thought. Social Problems. 33(6):S14-S32.
f. * Ellis, Carolyn. (1998) "I HATE MY VOICE":. Coming to Terms with
Minor Bodily Stigmas. The Sociological Quarterly. 39(4): 517–537.
g. * Liazos, Alexander. (1972). The Poverty of the Sociology of Deviance: Nuts, Sluts,
and Preverts. Social Problems. 20(1): 103-120.
h. * Rosenhan, D.L. (Jan 19, 1973.) "On Being Sane in Insane Place."
Science. 179(4070): 250-258.
(2.) 11.20.2008 - 12.04.2008 - The Social Construction of Normalcy
(I.) Please read (a), (b), and at least two other articles between 11.20.2008 - 12.04.2008
a. * Bogdan, Robert and Steven Taylor. (1987.) Toward a Sociology of Acceptance:
The Other Side of the Study of Deviance. Social Policy. 18(2): 34-39.
b. * Davis, Lennard J. (1995.) The Construction of Normalcy.
Enforcing Normalcy. New York: Verso: 23-49. HV1568 .D39 1995
c. * Butler, Judith. (2006.) Violence, Politics, Mourning. Precarious Life. New York:
Verso. 19-49. HV6432 .B88 2006
d. * Lynch, Michael. (1983.) “Accommodation Practices: Vernacular
Treatments of Madness.” Social Problems. 31(2): 152-164
e. * Moser, Ingunn and John Law. (1999.) Good Passages, Bad Passages. in
Actor Network Theory and after. edited by John Law and John Hassard. Malden, MA:
Blackwell Publishing. 196-219. HM585 .A27 1999
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f. * Smith, Dorothy. (1978.) "K is mentally ill": The anatomy of a factual account.
Sociology. 12:23-53.
12.04.2008 - Ethnographic Study Due
Final Exam: TBA
Academic Integrity
In class, we will work together to comprehend important readings in the sociology of deviance and
social control. In the spirit of this collective effort, please feel welcome to speak with classmates about
course readings. You are also permitted to review for exams and the final paper with other students.
However, your work must be original and, when using, paraphrasing, or referencing the work of
another, you must include a citation of the source. I will treat plagiarism and cheating in accordance
with Boston College’s Academic Integrity Policy and Procedures.
“The pursuit of knowledge can proceed only when scholars take responsibility and receive credit for their
work. Recognition of individual contributions to knowledge and of the intellectual property of others
builds trust within the University and encourages the sharing of ideas that is essential to scholarship.
Similarly, the educational process requires that individuals present their own ideas and insights for
evaluation, critique, and eventual reformulation. Presentation of others' work as one's own is not only
intellectual dishonesty, but also undermines the educational process.”
You are responsible for familiarizing yourself with these policies and procedures, which you can
find at - http://www.bc.edu/offices/stserv/academic/resources/policy.html#integrity
Please note that in this class the minimum penalty for cheating or plagiarizing will be failure of that
course requirement.
A message on our semester together
Having instructed two courses and been a teaching assistant in ten others, I am aware that the semester
can produce any number of stresses, surprises, emergencies, and frustrations for students.
If you find yourself struggling to understand course readings, class assignments or my grading, I
strongly encourage you to speak with me immediately. I am always happy to share my thoughts on
your assignments, as well as strategies for improvement. Of course, it is more helpful to have such a
discussion before the final week or two of classes - which is when the reality of "the final grade" tends
to set-in.
If you find yourself struggling to complete assignments or attend class, I strongly encourage you to let
me know about your concerns. Additionally, you may want to speak with you class dean, who can
provide you with some general advice on whatever is interfering with your learning. You can find your
class dean's email address and office number at the following site: http://www.bc.edu/schools/cas/
about/contact.html.
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