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Emile Durkheim
◦ The problem of solidarity
 Modern societies
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Urban
Industrial
Bureaucratic
Pluralistic
 Socialization & Intermediate Institutions
 Social Integration
 Moral Regulation
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Normal, Healthy Society
◦ Normal: Universal
 Universal: Necessary
 Serves some positive function
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Deviance is Normal
Positive functions
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sets moral boundaries
strengthens group solidarity for the non-deviants
innovation
tension reduction
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Society is a social system in which all parts
contribute to the functioning of the system
◦ Including deviance
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Robert Merton

Merton: things to avoid
◦ Assuming harmonious integration of all parts of
social system
◦ Assuming a phenomenon's existence means it is
functional for the system
 Tautology
◦ Assuming there is only one structural way of
accomplishing societal needs
 and that way is the one that is in existence
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Implications (Merton)
◦ Deviance may be functional for some but
dysfunctional for others
◦ Not all forms of deviance may be positive
◦ Distinguish between manifest & latent functions
◦ There may be alternative and better means to
accomplish the same purposes

Robert Dentler & Kai Erikson
◦ Quaker work groups & Boot camps
 Groups induce, permit, and maintain deviance
 Deviant behavior helps to
maintain group balance
 Groups will resist alienation
of any one of its members
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Kai Erikson: Wayward Puritans
◦ a study of the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay
Colony
◦ support for three functionalist conclusions
 Deviance helps to establish and strengthen moral
boundaries
 Acts considered to be deviant reflect their social
context
 Societies routinely funnel a certain number of people
into a deviant course of action
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Society is a self-adjusting machine
◦ Like a thermostat
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Four societal mechanisms for social control
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Socialization
Profit
Persuasion
Coercion
◦ Deviance results from the failure of first three
mechanisms
 Leading to the use of coercion
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Strengths:
◦
Fosters rational approach to deviance and crime
 A certain amount of deviance is normal and even
positive
◦ Reduces scape-goating or over-reaction
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Weaknesses
◦ overly mechanical view of human social existence
 Reification
 Ignores choice
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Logical fallacy
◦ Dangerous (diverts attention from, minimizes
serious social problems)
◦ Eliminates social change (or its consideration)