Florida International University
Department of Global Sociocultural Studies
SYG 3325 U03 – Social Deviancy – Fall 2015
SYLLABUS
Professor: Alfredo García
Mondays, 1-3:40PM
Ryder Building 130
Office Hours: By appointment
Email: alfgarci@fiu.edu
www.alfgarciamora.com
Course Description
Welcome! This course is focused on topics in the sociology of deviance. We will explore these areas with
an eye towards understanding how they relate to current issues in public policy and social life both in
the United States. The goal of the course is to develop the tools necessary to understand how social
structures create, maintain, and shape what we consider as “deviant” social behavior, and how these
social structures shift over time. An emphasis will be on how deviancy plays out in the social lives of
people on the ground.
Readings
All readings will be available as pdf copies through our Blackboard page.
Grading
%
25%
10%
20%
20%
25%
Assignment
Book review
In-class presentation
Participation and attendance
Midterm
Final exam
Due Date
November 29, 2015, 11:59PM
Date of your choice
November 1, 2015, 11:59PM
November 30, 2015, 1PM
Book Review
Please select one of the titles that Dr. Lavender had required for this class (please see his syllabus). For
this assignment, you are required to write a book review in the style of long-form journalism. Details are
provided below. You are expected to write between 1,000 and 1,250 words with proper citations and
style.
In-class presentation
Social deviancy comes up time and again in current events and popular media. For this assignment, you
are required to find a recent article (no older than January 1, 2014) that discusses some aspect of social
deviancy. You must be prepared to give a presentation for 5-7 minutes and are responsible for
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answering questions about the piece. Make sure to do enough background research so that you
understand the article completely.
You do NOT have to come prepared with handouts or any other materials (such as a powerpoint
presentation), but you DO have to come prepared to walk the class through the article step-by-step. The
task is to teach, to have us learn something through your own inquiry.
You will present on a date of your choice.
Midterm
For this assignment, you will write your own examples of midterm exam questions, complete with
answers and supporting information about how the question relates to our course. More information is
provided below.
Final Exam
The final exam will be a cumulative examination of all the materials covered in this course.
Participation and Attendance Policy
Twenty percent (20%) of the final grade will be based on participation and attendance. This is a sizeable
portion of your grade. Class time will be a mix of lecture, activities, and discussion, so be prepared to
talk about the materials that have been assigned for class. You are expected to have read all of the
week’s materials prior to coming to class and must arrive prepared to discuss all of the readings and give
your own input on the topics. We meet only once a week, so make sure to dedicate time throughout the
week to do the readings. DO NOT leave it for the night before class; you will hate yourself.
By taking this class, you are making a commitment to attend all lectures, arrive on time, and leave only
when class is fully finished. Absences will result in deducted participation/attendance points.
Technology is now ubiquitous and is an integral part of social interaction today. The dings, vibrations,
and boinks of cell phones, tablets, and computers, however, are highly distracting for class discussions
and lectures. As a result, you must turn off and put away your cell phone and computers upon entering
the classroom. Laptops will not be allowed during class. Make sure to bring plenty of paper and writing
utensils for class notes and activities.
It is my legal right to prohibit any kind of recording of this class, and I exercise that right. Therefore,
recording devices of any kind, audio or video, are prohibited in this class. Violating this policy is illegal,
and violators will be sanctioned.
Active Learning Strategies
This course will engage students through controversial/ethical discussion topics, case studies, class
discussions, out-of-class assignments, and group work. As a result of the active learning methods that
will be employed during class time, it is imperative that you read all materials before attending class.
Although I will be lecturing every week for some portion of the time, I will not be covering every detail of
the readings. The task is for you to come to class prepared to learn beyond the textbook.
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Grading Scale
94 – 100 A
90 – 93 A87 – 89 B+
84 – 86 B
80 – 83 B77 – 79 C+
74 – 76 C
70 – 73 C67 – 69 D+
64 – 66 D
60 – 63 D0 – 59 F
There are no make-up exams and/or assignments, there is no grading curve, and there is no extra credit.
Late materials will not be accepted.
Center for Academic Success
The Center for Academic Success is available on both campuses to support you. They provide
personalized attention tailored to your needs in a user-friendly environment that includes online
support. You can get help writing a paper, reading more efficiently and increasing textbook
comprehension, or even creating an individualized learning plan. The center is located in the Green
Library 120 at MMC and in AC1 160 at BBC. Find them online at http://undergrad.fiu.edu/cas/learningcenter/.
Disability Clause
Students with disabilities, as defined by law, have the right to receive needed accommodation if their
disabilities make it difficult to perform academic tasks in the usual way or in the allotted time frame. In
order to receive accommodation, however, students must register with the Disability Resource Center in
GC 190 at MMC and WUC 131 at BBC.
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COURSE SCHEDULE
Sept 28 – Introduction to Course
No readings assigned for this class.
Oct 5 – Cultures, Subcultures, and Deviancy
Giddens, Anthony, Mitchell Duneier, Richard P. Applebaum, and Deborah Carr. 2014. “Culture
and Society.” Pp. 51-82 in Introduction to Sociology, 9th Edition. New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, Inc.
Giddens, Anthony, Mitchell Duneier, Richard P. Applebaum, and Deborah Carr. 2014.
“Conformity, Deviance, and Crime” Pp. 161-190 in Introduction to Sociology, 9th Edition. New
York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Oct 12 – Being an Outsider, Becoming an Outsider, No longer an Outsider?
Becker, Howard S. 1963. “Outsiders.” Pp. 1-18 in Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance.
New York: The Free Press.
Becker, Howard S. 1953. “Becoming a Marihuana User.” American Journal of Sociology 59(3):
235-242.
Featherstone, Steve. 2015. “Spike Nation.” New York Times. July 8.
Friedersdorf, Conor. 2014. “Life With Legal Weed.” The Atlantic. August 13.
Khazan, Olga. 2015. “‘Wanna Grab a Marijuana Tea After Work?’” The Atlantic. June 20.
Oct 19 – Gangs
Venkatesh, Sudhir A. 1997. “The Social Organization of Street Gang Activity in an Urban Ghetto.”
American Journal of Sociology 103(1): 82-111.
Venkatesh, Sudhir A., and Steven D. Levitt. 2000. “‘Are We a Family or a Business?’ History and
Disjuncture in the Urban American Street Gang.” Theory and Society 29(4): 427-462.
Levitt, Steven D., and Stephen J. Dubner. 2006. “Why do Drug Dealers Still Live with their
Moms?” Pp. 114-152 in Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of
Everything.
“Harper High School: Part I and II.” This American Life. Radio program. Produced by Ira Glass.
Approx 2 hours.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/487/harper-high-school-part-one
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/488/harper-high-school-part-two
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Oct 26 – Retail Drugs
Mohamed, A Rafik, and Erik Fritsvold. 2010. “Overlooked Illegal Markets: Dealing Dope, College
Style,” “The Primary Market: Dealing Marijuana, Cocaine, and Party Drugs,” and “Why Rich Kids
Sell Street Drugs: Wankstaz, Wannabes, and Capitalists in Training.” Pp. 1-62 in Dorm Room
Dealers: Drugs and the Privileges of Race and Class. Lynne Rienner Publisher.
Williams, Terry. 1989. “The Cocaine Trade.” Pp. 31-61 in The Cocaine Kids: The Inside Story of a
Teenage Drug Ring. New York: Da Capo Press.
Frazier, Ian. 2014. “The Antidote.” The New Yorker. September 8.
Tough, Paul. 2001. “The Alchemy of OxyContin.” The New York Times Magazine. July 29.
Nov 1, 11:59PM – Midterm Exam Due
Nov 2 – Criminals and the Criminal Justice System
Goffman, Alice. 2009. “On the Run: Wanted Men in a Philadelphia Ghetto.” American
Sociological Review 74: 339-357.
Kelling, George L., and James Q. Wilson. 1982. “Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood
Safety.” The Atlantic.
Nov 9 – Building and Maintaining Trust
Gambetta, Diego. 2009. “Criminal Credentials,” and “The Power of Limits.” Pp. 3-53 in Codes of
the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Ferguson, Rachael. 2014. “The Wide World of Bookies: Splitting the Odds of the American
Dream.” VICE Magazine, March 20.
If I Give My Soul: Pentecostalism in Rio’s Prisons. Directed by Andrew Johnson and Ryan Patch.
57 min. Available at: http://www.ifigivemysoul.com/preview/
Nov 16 – Graffiti and Crews
Snyder, Gregory J. 2009. “Introduction,” “Crime Space vs. Cool Space: Breaking Down Broken
Windows,” “ESPO: Illustrating Struggle,” “Into the Tunnel: Under Manhattan,” “A Pilgrimage to
MEK: A Bronx Graffiti Tour,” “Legal Graffiti: Contemporary Permission Spots,” and “Style Points:
ESPO’s Brooklyn Mural.” Pp. 1-12, 47-58, 81-105 in Graffiti Lives: Beyond the Tag in New York’s
Urban Underground. New York: New York University Press.
Storm, Christian. 2012. “Shoegaze and Graffiti.”
http://www.vice.com/read/shoegaze-and-graffiti-2
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VICE
Magazine,
September
27.
Nov 23 – The Future of Hustling
Bearman, Joshuah. 2015. “The Rise and Fall of Silk Road: Part I and II.” WIRED Magazine.
Van Hout, Marie Claire, and Tim Bingham. 2014. ‘Responsible vendors, intelligent consumers:
Silk Road, the online revolution in drug trading.’ International Journal of Drug Policy. 25(2): 183189.
Van Hout, Marie Claire, and Tim Bimgham. 2013. ‘Surfing the Silk Road’: A study of users’
experiences’. International Journal of Drug Policy. 24(6): 524-529
Nov 30 – In-Class Final Exam
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ASSIGNMENTS
Book Review
You are a writer for a popular magazine and your editor has requested that you report on a new book.
Your readers have followed your writing for quite some time, but you have mainly focused on writing
essays and such. This is a new task for you, and your boss knows it. Still, you feel the pressure from up
above and you know that you have to perform well in order to keep your readers (and editor!) happy.
This task will be difficult because it will require that you be as comprehensive as possible given your
short word count. Every. Single. Word. Counts. Your editor is harsh and wants this piece to be as crisp as
possible.
Details:
- Use anywhere between 1,000-1,250 words in the body of your text. Name, title, references, and
other words are not included in this word count.
- The write-up must be single-spaced with 1” margins, Calibri font, 11-pt font.
- You must provide a comprehensive review of the aim of the book, the main areas that it covers,
and the historical background for the production of this book.
o Why did this person write this particular book?
o Why did this book matter at all?
o What was the historical trends at the time the book was published?
- You must provide one positive and one negative critique of the book.
o What is one thing that you particularly liked? Was it the writing style, a chapter in
particular?
o What is one thing that you did not like? What stood out to you as far as the book was
concerned?
o Make sure to give particular examples and citations from the book to back up your
opinions.
- Suggest further reading for your reader.
o If you liked this, then you might like…
The assignment allows you to break out of the typical writing style that you probably use for class essays
and the like. Use your prose creatively. Have fun with your descriptions. And make sure to use your own
voice to express your opinion.
Do not plagiarize. I will give you a failing grade for this assignment if any part of the assignment is
plagiarized. Make sure to use proper citation methods for quotations and paraphrasing. If you do not
know the details of plagiarism, then please see somebody in the Green Library.
Again: Do not plagiarize. You will regret it.
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Midterm Exam
You are a professor for a Social Deviancy class and you have been asked by a textbook company to help
them create a “test bank” for their website. The publishers would like for you to come up with five (5)
multiple choice questions and 2 essay questions for them to consider.
Your task is to do the following:
Come up with five (5) multiple choice questions. Each question must have five (5) possible answers, but
only one (1) correct answer. After each question, you must provide the following:
 Give an explanation as to why the incorrect responses are incorrect.
 Provide details as to what the question is meant to test.
 Rate the question as easy, medium, or difficult.
Come up with two (2) essay questions. After each question, you must provide the following:
 Write down the best response you can think of for that question.
 Rate the question as easy, medium, or difficult.
Multiple Choice Questions
The challenge with this assignment is in coming up with creative, interesting, and challenging multiple
choice questions. Here is an example of a BAD question:
Features that are found in virtually all societies are called:
a. subcultures
b. multiculturalism
c. ethnocentrism
d. cultural universals
e. cultural relativism
This is basically just a question that asks the student to remember a definition and to find the word. It’s
boring, it’s simple, and it’s not instructive. Here is an example of a GOOD question:
Social media is now a common part of normal social interaction. People often have multiple
accounts across a variety of platforms: Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter, etc. All of these platforms,
moreover, allow for the user to have some kind of power over who can view their account.
Facebook, for instance, has a “friend” request button whereby people request “friendship” with
somebody else. It is only when the request is accepted that a person can view the material on
each others’ Facebook profiles. This method of requesting a “friend” is one way that social
media allows the user to employ:
a. status staging
b. civil attention
c. interactional vandalism
d. time-space regionalization
e. audience segregation
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This question is better because it asks for student to apply concepts to real-world issues, is relevant to
today, and is not obvious. There are several options that could possibly be correct, but it takes a keen
eye to see which one is the best answer. The question is also substantive: it’s not just one sentence. It
gives the student a full account of the phenomenon that is being analyzed.
This question would then be followed up by the explanations of the incorrect answers:
Although important for human interaction, status staging most often takes place through faceto-face (ie: not digital) interaction because it requires a substantive amount of maneuvering
of setting. People need to dress differently, act differently, and be present in different
situations for status staging to take place, thus it would be nearly impossible to perform
status staging purely online.
Civil inattention just doesn’t apply. Civil inattention is the process by which humans
acknowledge each other in public settings so as to denote that there is a lack of danger but
that there is no interest to interact. It is saved for face-to-face interaction and is not applied
to online settings.
Interactional vandalism also just doesn’t apply. Interactional vandalism is a term created by
Mitch Duneier that indicates processes by which human interaction can be seen as forms of
microaggressions. It is typically seen between men and women—such as when a man cat
calls or initiates a conversation with a woman using suggestive or sexual language.
Time-space regionalization could have been a possible answer, but it does not fully apply to the
online world of adding friends. If the question was re-worded so as to indicate processes of
communication online over the long-term, then this answer would have made the most
sense.
And then follow up the answer explanations with a description of what the question was meant to test:
The goal for this question is to have the student recall the concept of “audience segregation”
but to apply it to an online setting.
And finally, the rating:
Difficulty Level: Medium.
Be creative with your questions, and have them be applicable to real world scenarios. The best
questions include settings such as work, dorm, family, driving, etc. The best questions also have some
kind of story that is attached to. As you develop your questions, however, feel free to think outside of
the box. Maybe use a picture or diagram to get the question going (think of political cartoons, New
Yorker cartoons, or even a meme).
Essay Questions
We’ve all been there: we study, we prepare, we make flash cards, and then we arrive on the day of the
exam and encounter a question that seems like it was written for a different class, a different time
period, or a different university altogether. Suddenly your eyes start saying “WTF” and the sweat begins
to roll.
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Well now you can have your chance to (1) craft your own perfect essay and (2) craft your own perfect
answer. Have fun with this, and use as many resources as you possibly can.
Here is an example of a BAD question:
In class, we discussed the four elements that typically considered as “culture.” Please provide
the names of these four elements, give a definition of each, and then give an example of each.
Although the question asks a lot from the student and can surely be an essay question, it is not a good
question because it just asks the student to regurgitate material from class without really considering it
in depth. If the student doesn’t remember all four elements, then they might feel as though they’re
already at a disadvantage. And just asking a student to give examples also might ask the student to just
regurgitate material from class. There really is just one way to get an A on this question.
But if you re-work the question in this way, then it can become a GOOD question:
Draw a map of your bedroom and label the material objects it contains. Do not just focus on the
standard furniture items, but also include things like framed photographs, trophies, relics,
heirlooms, jewelry stands, instruments, and the like. How are these material goods signifiers of
American culture and the subcultures to which you belong?
This question is good because it provides the student with ample room to explore the elements of
culture in their own lives while also giving them the opportunity to look at their own personal living
space through the eyes of the sociologist. It is also a good question because it includes many elements
from the class: symbols, signifiers, culture, subcultures, etc. The student has many opportunities to get
an A on this question—there is not just one right answer. The best answers include as many details from
class as possible while also being creative in thinking and analyzing.
After the question, you are required to write the best response you can imagine. Imagine you are the
professor and that you are grading the exam. What would you consider an A answer?
And finally, give a rating for the essay question:
Difficulty Level: Medium
Again, be creative with your questions, and have them be applicable to real world scenarios. The best
questions include settings such as work, dorm, family, driving, etc. Have students think outside the box.
And, most importantly, make sure that the question has multiple avenues for success. The best
questions also have some kind of story that is attached to. As you develop your questions, however, feel
free to think outside of the box. Maybe use a picture or diagram to get the question going (think of
political cartoons, New Yorker cartoons, or even a meme).
As with your book review, it is imperative that you DO NOT PLAGIARIZE this task. There are plenty of
questions on the internet that you can consider as examples, but the final production of these questions
and answers must be solely your own. Use your resources, use the internet, use your friends—but at the
end of the day, use your own insight to come up with questions and answers.
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