Deviance, Conformity, and Social Control in Canada, 6th edition Tami M Bereska Solution Manual

Type:

Solution Manual

Resource:

Deviance, Conformity, and Social Control in Canada

Edition:

6th Edition

Author(s):

Tami M. Bereska

INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL to accompany

Deviance, Conformity, and Social Control in Canada Sixth Edition

Lauren Barr Western University

Contents Preface

iii

Chapter 1

Determining Deviance

1

Chapter 2

Explaining Deviance: The Act

11

Chapter 3

Explaining Deviance: The Perception, Reaction, and Power

21

Chapter 4

Deviance 2.0: The Role of the Media

32

Chapter 5

“Deviant” and “Normal” Sexuality

41

Chapter 6

Youth “At Risk” and “As a Risk”

50

Chapter 7

Looking Deviant: Physical Appearance

60

Chapter 8

Mental Health and Illness

70

Chapter 9

What Do You Believe? Religion, Science, and Deviance

80

Chapter 10

The “Deviance Dance” Continues

90

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Preface This Instructor’s Manual has been created to accompany Deviance, Conformity, and Social Control in Canada, Sixth Edition, by Tami M. Bereska. Each of the chapters in this manual includes the Learning Objectives, a Lecture Outline, Teaching Suggestions for Active Learning, Video Suggestions, Website Suggestions, News Article Suggestions and an Apply What You Know section.

The “Learning Objectives” remind instructors of the stated learning objectives for each chapter to help with planning learning activities and material for each subject.

The “Lecture Outline” provides instructors with a detailed framework, in point form, for the content of the chapter in the textbook. Each lecture outline is between 3 and 7 pages, depending upon the chapter length, the range and depth of ideas in the chapter, and the number of specific concepts utilized within the chapter.

The “Teaching Suggestions for Active Learning” provide suggestions for class discussions, student activities, lecture preparation, and specific ways of integrating the video and website suggestions.

The “Video Suggestions”, “Website Suggestions”, and “News Article Suggestions” all offer supplementary material that relates to the chapter in both obvious and more applied ways. These can be used as pre-assigned work for students or to share and discuss together as a class. They can be incorporated into higher order activities to help students think about how this material applies to the world outside the classroom. Sources were selected based on relevance, as well as being free and touching on a wide variety of contemporary issues.

The “Apply What You Know” section describes an exercise for students to go beyond and learn how to use the material each week. The ideas proposed may use the video or audio clip associated with each chapter, which is included in the Companion Website that accompanies the book, or other sources that are easily accessible and relevant to the material. This section lists additional questions that instructors can pose if they use this activity in class.

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Chapter 1: Determining Deviance LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reviewing this chapter, students should be able to: 1.1 Describe the objective/subjective dichotomy.

1.2 Provide four definitions of deviance traditionally associated with the objective side of the objective/subjective dichotomy, and explain their limitations.

1.3 Describe the definition of deviance traditionally associated with the subjective side of the objective/subjective dichotomy, and summarize the concept of social construction.

1.4 Explain why it is more appropriate to refer to an objective– subjective continuum rather than an objective/subjective dichotomy.

1.5 Explain how the study of deviance is influenced by how the researcher defines it, and clarify the role of the “deviance dance” and power relations in Canadian society.

1.6 Outline the three components of the social typing process through which someone is deviantized.

LECTURE OUTLINE 1. There are different ways of trying to answer the question, “Who is deviant?” a. Looking at topics in deviance textbooks, “nuts, sluts, perverts” (Liazos, 1972, p. 103) and criminals have traditionally dominated, however more recently the topics of deviance textbooks have started reflecting broader notions of deviance (e.g. patrons of adult novelty stores; couples who are voluntarily childless). b. The dictionary indicates that anyone who deviates from accepted norms is deviant. It also tells us that the opposite of “deviance” is either “normality” or “conformity”. c. How can we recognize “deviance” when we see it? This brings us to the broader issue of defining deviance. Deviance can be defined in an “objective” or a subjective” form.

These definitions of deviance are predicated upon the representation of an objective/subjective dichotomy or dualism. Objective and subjective are usually referred to as being mutually exclusive categories, or “opposites”.

2. Objective views of deviance focus on the qualities of deviant acts that enable people to recognize deviance when they see it. Subjective views of deviance focus on the processes by which we come to perceive certain acts as being deviant.

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3. Although objective approaches to deviance claim that there is something inherent in a “deviant” person, act, or characteristic that clearly distinguishes it from “normal”, there is some disagreement among objectivists regarding what that inherent trait is. Some objectivists have proposed each of statistical rarity, social harm, a negative societal reaction, and normative violation.

4. Some people suggest that something is “deviant” if it is statistically rare (e.g. smokers; men who wear women’s clothes). The limitations of using statistical rarity as the defining characteristic of deviance include the following: a. Defining “rare” can be problematic. Does “rare” exist at 49%, 30%, or 2%? b. Things that are statistically common are not necessarily considered acceptable in society (e.g. alcohol consumption among youth in Grade 12). c. Things that are rare are not necessarily treated as deviant in society (e.g. sports prodigies such as Serena Williams or Connor McDavid). d. Because of these limitations, the concept of statistical rarity is not utilized as the defining characteristic of deviance in the academic realm. However, it is frequently used in everyday conversation.

5. Some objectivists claim that harm is the defining characteristic of deviance. Therefore, how a person, act, or characteristic is “deviant” if it causes harm. a. Harm can take many forms: physical harm to oneself or others (e.g. smoking; assault); emotional harm to oneself or others (e.g. dating someone with an addiction; emotional abuse); social harm (e.g. crime); or harm to the way we understand the world and our place in it (e.g. Joan of Arc). b. The limitations of using harm as the defining characteristic of deviance include the following: • Perceptions of harm change over time (e.g. masturbation; marijuana use).

• Whether society or a belief system is being harmed can be subjective (Women’s movement) • There are times when the reactions cause more harm than the initial behaviours, characteristics, or people themselves (making cannabis illegal created a black market distributing unregulated products) 6. A negative societal reaction is another trait that objectivists have claimed is the defining characteristic of deviance. Something or someone is deviant if society’s “masses” react negatively (i.e., with anger, hatred, or dislike). a. The limitations of using negative societal reaction as the defining characteristic of deviance include the following: • Focusing on the reaction without considering what contributed to that reaction leaves questions unanswered. (i.e. Why do people feel something is deviant?)

• It is important to recognize that who is reacting, and how many are reacting is part of the conversation. “Masses” does not always match numbers; it may have more to do with social power.

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7. Finally, some objectivists suggest that normative violation is the defining characteristic of deviance. Something or someone is “deviant” if societal norms are being violated. In fact, this is the definition of deviance provided in the dictionary. a. The way that objectivists have used normative violation has changed over time, from absolutist views suggesting that universal norms are determined by some immutable source (e.g. God; the laws of nature), to contemporary perceptions of norms being culturally and historically specific. b. The limitations of using normative violation as the defining characteristic of deviance emphasize the issue of context. Most objectivists today perceive norms as being culturally and historically specific. c. Not all norms are the same. Breaking some will lead to milder social sanctions (eye rolling), whereas others can lead to prison. Sumner (1906) outlined the relationship between norms, folkways and mores. Norms exist on a continuum. Informal rules (folkways) like etiquette, when broken can result in milder social reactions (burping at a table may be rude). On the other end, standards based on morality (mores), lead to moral judgement (you are immoral). If you break a law, you are a criminal. d. However, critics claim that the diversity of social groups that exists in society means that there is diversity in perceptions of societal norms. e. In response to these critiques, some objectivists have elected to focus on those norms that they suggest are characterized by some consensus, and are reflected in a society’s laws.

This consensual view of law views the law as arising out of social consensus and then equally applied to all. In contrast, the conflict view perceives the law as a tool used by the ruling class to serve its own interests. The interactionist view suggests that society’s powerful define the law at the behest of interest groups, who appeal to those with power to rectify a perceived social ill. The process of socialization and how norms are established, based on values, through interactions and social learning. f. Thio (1983) uses the terms high-consensus deviance and low-consensus deviance to refer to those forms of deviance that have different levels of support within society.

8. Subjective definitions of deviance argue that it is not a quality that lies at the core of deviance, but rather a process. That is, groups with some influence on society have told us that certain people, behaviours, or characteristics are deviant”. Deviance becomes socially defined based on dominant moral codes, which serve as the foundation for determining which people, behaviours, or characteristics are “deviant” or “normal”. Dominant moral codes are “lists” of right/wrong, acceptable/unacceptable, or moral/immoral, that are historically and culturally specific, and which are enforced in multiple ways. subjective deviance specialists point to the complex nature of power relations. Social processes involve far more than simply the control and oppression of the powerless by the powerful. The use and legitimization of power interacts with negotiations about moral boundaries—negotiations in which less powerful groups in society are also able to participate. Consequently, powerless groups can resist and act in their own interests, rather than simply being at the mercy of the interests of the powerful. Continual negotiations are occurring, such that the social construction of deviance and normality/conformity is in a constant state of flux.

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9. Dominant moral codes emerge from processes of social construction. a. There are different approaches to the notion of social construction—strict and contextual. Some people suggest that most contemporary deviance specialists are soft constructionists. b. Strict constructionists postulate a distinct theoretical perspective claiming that the world is characterized by endless relativism, most do not believe that everything is a matter of definition, that there is no essential reality to the social world at all. Rather, most sociologists of deviance believe that there are limits to social constructionism, reality does exist but people’s perceptions and experiences of that reality can vary. c. From a constructionist perspective, what is of significance is not the behaviour or characteristic itself, but rather (a) its place in the social order, (b) the roles that are assigned to individuals who exhibit that behaviour or characteristic, and (c) the meanings that are attached to it. d. Contextual constructionists focus more on the process or pathway. “Deviance is constructed by processes that occur at multiple levels (Nelson, 2010)”. They emphasize five multilevel processes that determine the social construction of deviance: (a) the global level (global economic, political, social, environmental interconnections) (b) the sociocultural level (e.g. values, beliefs, ideologies); (c) the institutional level (e.g. religion; education; government); (d) the interactional level (e.g. the influence of other people on one’s own perceptions of deviance); and (e) the individual level (e.g. identity; conceptions of self).

10. Many deviance specialists suggest that definitions of deviance have shifted from the “objective” to the “subjective” side and the idea of an objective/subjective dichotomy.

Recent shifts in definitions of deviance have transcended the objective/subjective dichotomy altogether by combining both objective and subjective aspects. It is now more commonly discussed as being part of a continuum.

11. At the objective end, researchers are interested in studying deviant people, acts, and characteristics themselves, to determine the factors that influence their emergence. The deviance nature is somewhat taken for granted, because they are violating norms (regardless of all other factors). The goal is to explain the deviance and ask why they violate the norms.

12. Subjective specialists focus on understanding the process and role of society in the construction of deviance. They want to understand the perceptions of and reactions to that person or act. Because there are plural perceptions of and reactions to the very same act, a “deviance dance” exists in society, as people debate, struggle, and negotiate over particular persons or acts.

13. Power plays a crucial role in the creation of society’s dominant moral codes. Social power is given to people based on gender, race, ethnicity, ability, etc. The most powerful groups in Canadian society today include politicians, scientists, religious institutions, the media, and commercial enterprise. Each of these groups acts as, or has relationships with, moral entrepreneurs who identify a social ill and then have the power to have something done about it.

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14. Powerful groups in society control the social typing process. The first component of the social typing of deviance is description, where a label is attached to a person or act (e.g. “terrorist”). The second component is evaluation, which attaches a judgment to the person or act that has been labelled (e.g. “dangerous”). The last component of the social typing process is prescription, where the person who has been labelled and judged is treated in specific ways. The prescription component of the social typing process involves social control or regulation.

15. Social control may be formal (imprisonment), informal (e.g. criticism), retroactive (e.g.

National Sex Offender Registry), preventative (e.g. socialization and education), or selfregulated (e.g. weighing oneself every morning).

16. It is possible for groups to resist the social typing process. This can happen at all levels of social interaction. They can challenge the label of deviance itself, the process by which construction happens, the discourse and language, or the forms of social control.

TEACHING SUGGESTIONS FOR ACTIVE LEARNING Pedagogical reminders are added into the Learning Activities to encourage the creation of universally designed, inclusive classrooms.

1. There is a lot of power in examining language. One way to help students understand and see the existence of social values and norms is to have them analyze social ‘insults’. Put them in groups and have them brainstorm all the names we call each other. a. If we call someone ‘lazy’ because they are homeless – what norm is being violated?

What values are at the base of those norms? Why do we take the time to call them this (in our heads? To others? To the person themselves?) Why do we care if it doesn’t directly impact us? b. What categories of human behaviour or identity do we socially control with the words we use? (gender, sexuality, sexual orientation, race, intelligence, class, family, etc.) c. Who/what is included / excluded from this process? Who is labelled? Who is not? d. Who creates the words? Where did these words / terms come from? What is their origin?

What are the rules around when they can be used? e. Build in cultural recognition by analyzing some insults that have been used in the past or in different cultures to show how deviant ‘insults’ change with social context. Encourage students to think about similarities and differences from one society to the next (values, norms, controls). f. What are the outcomes? What impact do these insults have? g. PEDAGOGICAL REMINDER: Students need to be cautioned to not say these words out loud. Safety and awareness must be at the centre of every discussion from the beginning.

Encourage students to think of negative words we use to describe people, and then step back and think more about what those words mean. By doing this early, you establish mindfulness in the students as they become conscious of the words they use and how they impact others.

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2. Another interesting way to start the course is to show students a series of images, and ask whether the person, behaviour, or characteristic reflected in each of the images is “deviant” or not. A diverse range of images should be selected, from the dramatic (e.g. a person with extensive tattooing and piercing on his/her face), to the mundane (e.g. a teenager). a. PEDAGOGICAL REMINDER: You want to ensure safety in this class to set the tone.

Ensure that you are picking pictures that are not going to make your students uncomfortable. Encourage them to vote based on what they think society deviantizes, rather than what they themselves consider deviant. This will keep your class from dividing or people trying to determine who has said what. You may also want to find ways to have students vote ‘anonymously’ (digital tools like i-clicker or kahoot) could work for this. b. Instructors may want to select images that reflect various chapter topics, as a means of introducing students to the course. They may also find it useful to show contrasting images, such as one person smoking a cigarette in an isolated “smoking” area and another drinking a glass of wine in an upscale bar. Those images where student opinion is divided help to illustrate the concept of the deviance dance.

Additional discussion questions can include the following, which will then smoothly lead into lecture material for the chapter: c. Why is this person/behaviour considered “deviant”? Why is this person/behaviour not considered deviant? Many student responses will emphasize characteristics that are associated with objectivist views of deviance (e.g. rarity; normative violation). d. How have you come to know that this person/behaviour is deviant (or not)? That is, where does your knowledge come from? Shifting students’ attention to knowledge production highlights subjectivist views of deviance, dominant moral codes, processes of social construction, and agents of power.

3. Ask the students to keep a reflective journal, for part (or all) of the course, to document their observations/experiences of social typing and social control. Encourage them to be really conscious and intentional about what they see in others, as well as what they themselves are thinking and feeling. Remind them that anytime they find themselves labelling or assuming something is deviant, feeling emotional responses to ‘difference’, they should step back and ask “what am I reacting to?”

4. The Ask Yourself questions located throughout the chapter can be used as discussion points in class, or as a journaling exercise.

5. The Exercise Your Mind boxes located in the chapter can be used as discussion points in class, or as short written assignments.

6. Statistical rarity, harm, negative societal reaction, and violation of norms are all characteristics that are emphasized in various contemporary debates over deviance, and in the work of politicians, social activists, and various interest groups. Divide students into groups and assign each group one of the above characteristics. Each group will then come up with examples of that characteristic being used by someone as an argument for why certain people or behaviours need to be regulated or controlled in some way. Instructors may want to encourage students to use the Internet as a resource for this activity; doing so can serve as a

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foundation for some of the material found in Chapter 4, regarding the media and deviance (e.g. the media as a site where deviance and normality are socially constructed, and as a site of the deviance dance).

7. Help students see this material out in the world: as an in-class activity, discussion forum or assignment: a. Have students walk across campus, looking for the social construction of deviance and normality, and measures of social control. They may find examples in people’s social interactions (i.e. facial expressions, gestures, behaviours, conversations), the posters found on bulletin boards (e.g. advertising a pub crawl; reminding students about academic integrity), institutional policies (e.g. code of student conduct), or the physical structure of the buildings (e.g. separate bathrooms for males and females; “ Quiet” signs in the library or “Authorized Personnel Only” signs on doors). b. Have students watch media of any form for specific forms of deviance, or for social discussions around deviance. They can watch social media, news, etc.

• They could examine specific events, cases, or categories of deviance where they can see evidence of objective and /or subjective ways of discussing deviance.

• They could do a ‘digital scavenger hunt’ where they look for certain words, images, labels, etc.

• They can look at comments people are making, the ways media frames (words, images, etc.) deviance, the types of things that are discussed and how they are included.

• Encourage students to think about what we see and what we don’t see!

• Encourage them to recognize power, ways of discussing deviance, and help them develop an understanding of intersectionality early in the course.

8. Instructors can select a specific example of “deviance”, and either lecture on that example in some detail, or select a video that addresses that example. For example: a. The National Film Board’s the Burning Times (see reference under “Video Suggestions”) provides the opportunity to apply most of the concepts and ideas presented in this chapter. The video begins with a discussion of how many contemporary women are rediscovering many “Pagan” religions, such as Wicca. However, of most relevance for this exercise is the outstanding historical review of the European witch persecutions.

Instructors who use The Burning Times for this exercise should instruct students to look for the following concepts and ideas while watching the video: ➢ Who had the label of “witch” attached to them?

Various people ran the risk of being accused of witchcraft: people who practiced the old folk religions; midwives; village wise women; herbal healers; widows; elderly people; financially independent women; by the end of the burnings, just about anyone could be accused. ➢ Were the witches statistically rare?

At least initially, they were rare. However, as time progressed, a far greater range of people were being accused. Two entire villages were convicted of witchcraft, which leads to questions about the concept of rarity.

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➢ Did the witches cause harm to other people, to the smooth running of the social order, or

to more abstract ideas about the nature of reality?

Witches were certainly accused of causing tremendous physical harms— stillborn babies, droughts, failed crops, infertility, illness, and death. Many of the people convicted of witchcraft were perceived as a significant threat to the political power of the Christian Church and the political social order. Many of the people convicted did also threaten the doctrine of the Church at the time. ➢ Did society’s “masses” react negatively to the witches?

Although many citizens continue to practice Pagan religions, use midwives, and turn to the village wise women in secret, masses of people did attend the witch burnings, where they would cheer as the witch was being burned. However, some of the cheering masses may have been there, not because they supported the burnings, but because they were afraid of being suspected themselves if they were to be absent from the “celebration”. ➢ Did they violate social norms?

They did not violate traditional norms, but many of the people accused of witchcraft did violate the changing norms in society (e.g. women practicing medicine; women gathering with other women at night). What is significant here is the question of whose norms were being violated. ➢ Were the witches considered “deviant” because enough important people said so?

“Important” people who acted as moral entrepreneurs included leaders of the Christian Church, male medical doctors, people who participated in the tribunals, and political authorities. ➢ Who benefited from the deviantizing of the witches, and how did they benefit?

The Christian Church; the male medical profession; judges and lawyers. ➢ What was the nature of the social typing process (i.e. description; evaluation;

prescription), and how were the witches regulated or socially controlled?

Description = witch Evaluation = dangerous; evil Prescription = put on trial & put to death (formal social control); many people stopped using midwives, stopped trusting & respecting the village “wise=women” (informal) 9. See Video Suggestions for a reference to The 13th. You could also use this documentary to examine systemic racism through the prison system in the United States.

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VIDEO SUGGESTIONS ❖ Baxter, Emily. (Speaker). (2017). We Are All Criminals. Tedx. ❖ iamOTHER. (2012). Voice of Art – GATS (Graffiti Against The System). YouTube ❖ Read, D. (Director), Armstrong, M., Pettigrew, M., & Johansson, S. (Producers) (1994). The Burning Times. National Film Board of Canada. ❖ Averick, S., & DuVernay, A. (Writers). (2016). The 13th. Forward Movement, Kandoo Films & Netflix. ❖ Apatow, J. (Writer/Director), & Carell, S. (Writer). (2005). The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

Universal Pictures.

WEBSITE SUGGESTIONS ❖ http://www.positivedeviance.org Deviance is commonly thought of in negative terms. However, the Positive Deviance Initiative (an international effort) claims that some individuals or groups can be considered positive deviants who respond to challenges in uncommon or unusual ways. Their responses can then serve as a foundation for the development of more effective solutions to social problems, which can “…measurably enhance the lives of vulnerable people around the world.” The positive deviance approach to problem-solving has been used in initiatives related to child malnutrition, human trafficking, female genital mutilation, and more.

Monique Sternin, who is one of the organization’s founders, is also featured in a TEDx Talks (TEDxMidAtlantic 2013). ❖ http://psychologytoday.com/ Deviance scholars Patricia Adler and Peter Adler write a blog called “The Deviance Society” for Psychology Today (use search function to find the blog). Known as the “doctors of deviance”, their blog addresses a wide range of topics. Examples include self-injury, the socially constructed nature of deviance, and even New Zealand laws that socially control the names that parents can (and cannot) give their infants. Because the blog is written for laypersons, instructors will find some interesting topics to facilitate class discussion.

NEWS ARTICLE SUGGESTIONS ❖ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/25/brazil-rio-gangs-coronavirus ARTICLE: Brazil Gangs Impost Strict Curfew to Slow Coronavirus Spread. A conversation starter focused on a “deviant group” being “deviant for the common good”.

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APPLY WHAT YOU KNOW Provide students a chance to explore the objective / subjective dichotomy and examine how deviance can be studied from different perspectives. This exercise will help develop an understanding of the relationship between the views and lay the foundation for the ‘deviance dance’ that is shown throughout the rest of the text. It could be done individually or in groups, in-class or as an assignment.

1. Have students brainstorm the question “What is Terrorism?” a. You could have students read: Fridlund, Mats. (2019). Terrorism: A Very Brief History.

The Conversation: Canadian Edition.

2. Next, have students explore how the concepts introduced in Chapter 1 could be used to discuss terrorism from a deviance perspective. a. You could have each group study all, or assign them specific parts and then jig-saw to share what they have learned.

3. Encourage students to move through the four objective ways of determining deviance and apply it to this example. a. If we were studying Terrorism objectively (statistical rarity, harm, societal reaction, normative violation) what questions would we ask? What data would we use?

4. If we were studying Terrorism subjectively, what are the dominant moral codes? What values are being violated? a. How is terrorism socially constructed? b. Why does social context matter?

5. What is the “deviance dance” in relation to Terrorism?

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Chapter 2: Explaining Deviance: The Act LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reviewing this chapter, students should be able to: 2.1 Explain why different theories correspond to objective and subjective views of deviance, and describe the focus of positivist, interpretive, and critical theories.

2.2 Describe the core motivations of positivist theories, as well as how deviance is explained by the three types of positivist theories presented in this chapter.

2.3 Describe the core assumptions of functionalist theories, as well as how deviance is explained by (1) Durkheim’s anomie theory, (2) Merton’s anomie and strain theories, (3) differential opportunity theory, (4) general strain theory, and (5) status frustration theory. Outline the criticisms that have been directed at functionalist theories, and identify any responses to those criticisms.

2.4 Describe the core assumptions of learning theories, as well as how deviance is explained by (1) differential association theory, (2) neutralization theory, and (3) social learning theory.

Outline the criticisms that have been directed at learning theories, and identify any responses to those criticisms.

2.5 Describe how Hirschi’s social bonds theory explains deviance and its absence. Describe Gottfredson and Hirschi’s more recent self-control theory. Outline the criticisms that have been directed at control theories, and identify any responses to those criticisms.

LECTURE OUTLINE 1. Although some people perceive theory as somewhat impractical, we need theory because it explains the world to us. In the context of this course, theory explains the how’s and why’s surrounding deviance. Theory influences the questions that we ask when we are studying deviance.

2. Multiple theories coexist within the sociology of deviance, and each theory has its strengths and weaknesses. Because each theory shines its analytical spotlight on specific aspects of deviance, it may explain those aspects very well, but other aspects very poorly.

Thus, some theories will be more useful than others, depending upon the nature of the research questions.

3. The various theories that are used in the sociology of deviance, can be categorized as positivist, interpretive, and critical, although recent efforts at theoretical integration have created some overlap between these categories.

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4. The approaches to deviance discussed in Chapter 1 are associated with different theories. a. Those sociologists of deviance who lean toward the more objective end of the objectivesubjective continuum find positivist theories to be the most useful in their emphasis on the deviant act, characteristic, or person. b. Those sociologists of deviance who lean toward the more subjective end of the continuum find interpretive and critical theories to be the most useful in their emphasis on the processes of social construction and social typing that influence perceptions of and reactions to deviance.

5. This chapter explores positivist theories of deviance, which are fundamentally interested in understanding why people become deviant and the next chapter explores interpretive and critical theories of deviance.

6. Positivist theories and research are designed to model approaches common in natural science.

They are often searching for patterns and trying to determine cause-effect relationships.

Positivist explanations are connected with measures of social control. The goal is to determine why people behave the way that they do, ultimately seeking to predict, reduce, and prevent negative deviance (like crime).

7. The positivist theories that will be addressed are functionalist theories, learning theories, and social control theories.

8. Functionalist theories propose that the social structure creates deviance. These theories assume each of society’s structures fulfills functions (both manifest and latent) that are necessary to the maintenance of the social order. Problems emerge for society when a certain structure is no longer able to fulfill its functions. The functionalist theories of deviance that have been the most utilized and have had significant impacts on the sociology of deviance include the following: a. Durkheim’s theory of anomie b. Merton’s anomie and strain theories c. Cloward and Ohlin’s differential opportunity theory d. Agnew’s general strain theory e. Cohen’s theory of status frustration 9. Emile Durkheim is one of the founders of the discipline of sociology within his work he addressed deviance in two different ways. a. First, he suggested that a certain level of deviance is functional for society, helping to maintain social order as follows: • Increases social solidarity by motivating people to come together when faced with deviance in their midst (e.g. aftermath of shootings at Virginia Tech).

• Enables society to determine what its moral boundaries are, by observing what the consequences of various actions are (e.g. prohibiting theft because of the value of private property).

• Enables society to test its boundaries by pointing out that certain rules have become dysfunctional and must be changed to maintain social order (e.g. Anne Hutchison was charged and sanctioned for criticizing the minister’s Sunday sermons. Later, she came

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to be viewed as a champion of women’s rights and religious freedom).

• Reduces societal tensions by either providing a scapegoat for society’s problems (e.g. “witches”, “terrorists”; Communists), thus removing the pressure for society at large, or allowing people to let off some steam in relatively harmless ways and then return to their normal roles in society (e.g. Mardi Gras). b. Second, Durkheim proposed that at some point deviance may exceed the level at which it is functional for society. At some level, deviance becomes dysfunctional.

• Preindustrial societies were characterized by mechanical solidarity, with people bonded together by their similarities. Industrialization created societies characterized by organic solidarity, with people bonded together by differences that create interdependence.

• If social change occurs too rapidly, anomie (i.e. normlessness) results. Social bonds weaken, people become unsure of what the “rules” are, and deviance increases to dysfunctional levels. Thus, deviance is the result of characteristics of the structure of society.

• Durkheim applied this analysis to the study of suicide and the study of crime. c. Although Durkheim’s theory emerged during the process of industrialization, it can still be applied today within the context of the continuous rapid social change that characterizes the 21st century (e.g. anomic disorder now exists on a global scale, due to the economic changes associated with globalization. For example, Su et al. (2019) argue that the rapid and extensive economic reforms in China over the past four decades have led to a widening gap between the rich and poor, and rising individualism. The outcome of this suggest corresponds to anomic disorder, as seen in rising issues of Government corruption, and civil unrest.

10. Robert Merton has had his greatest influence on the sociology of deviance with his anomie and strain theories, which apply functionalist assumptions in a slightly different way than Durkheim’s theory did. However, as with Durkheim, Merton claims that the structure of society contributes to deviance. a. Modern North American society is characterized by certain institutionalized goals (i.e. wealth, status, prestige) and legitimate means of achieving those goals (e.g. education; hard work). However, society is structured in such a way that there is unequal access to those legitimate opportunities (e.g. consider the different opportunities for children in an inner-city neighborhood compared to an upper-class neighborhood). b. Due to the gap, or strain, between institutionalized goals and the legitimate means of achieving those goals, people can utilize five different modes of adaptation. i. Conformity: People accept both the goals and means (e.g. they follow the rules in pursuit of wealth, status, and prestige). ii. Innovation: People pursue the institutionalize goals, but through illegitimate means (e.g. obtaining wealth by selling illegal drugs). iii. Ritualism: People give up hope of ever achieving the institutionalized goals, but continue going through the motions of legitimate means (e.g. the TV character Homer Simpson). iv. Retreatism: People give up hope of achieving the institutionalized goals, and even stop going through the motions. Instead they “retreat” into their own worlds (e.g. alcoholism).

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v. Rebellion: People seek to replace the goals and means with a new set of goals and means (e.g. Louis Riel was executed for treason; Martin Luther King Jr; Greta Thunberg).

11. In Cloward and Ohlin’s functionalist-based differential opportunity theory, they expand on Merton’s theory by proposing that the structure of society creates differential access to both legitimate opportunities and illegitimate opportunities. The nature of illegitimate opportunities lower-class neighborhoods contributes to the emergence of criminal gangs (seeking financial opportunities), retreatist gangs (heavily involved in substance abuse), or conflict gangs (involved in the violent pursuit of power). This theory has relatively little empirical attention, but has acted as a foundation for social action and policy (Kubrin et al, 2009).

12. Robert Agnew’s general strain theory proposes that there are multiple sources of strain: inability to achieve goals (e.g. failing a course), removal of valued stimuli (e.g. the loss of a job), or presence of negative stimuli (e.g. parental conflict). a. However, strain is not sufficient to produce deviance. Strain must be accompanied by negative affect. Strain is most likely to be accompanied by negative affect when it is perceived as unjust, when it is severe, and when the individual lacks control over the situation (e.g. bullying). b. Individuals will attempt to ameliorate these negative emotions and may use one (or more) of three different strategies; in some cases, these strategies result in deviance, while at other times they do not. Some people may use cognitive coping strategies that transform the way they think about the strain. Emotional coping strategies may also be used to reduce the negative emotions caused by strain. These strategies may be deviant or conforming in nature. Other people may attempt to eliminate the strain itself by using behavioural coping strategies that may also be deviant or non-deviant in nature. c. More recently, Agnew (2006) has developed a more macro-level strain theory, which postulates that the principles of general strain theory can be integrated with structural factors. Here he suggests deviance will be more prevalent in certain location within the social structure (e.g., low-income neighborhoods) because of the large number of people who are experiencing strain (due to unemployment, low wages, or low education).

13. Albert Cohen’s theory of status frustration proposes that lower-class boys are unable to live up to the middle-class measuring rod that characterizes the school system. Thus, they create oppositional standards of behaviour (i.e. reaction formation) and join with other lower-class boys (i.e. mutual conversion), in non-utilitarian, malicious youth gangs.

14. Most common criticisms of functionalist theories include the following: a. its tautological and teleological reasoning b. its conservative bias that inherently supports the status quo c. the tendency of some functionalist theories (e.g. strain theories) for emphasizing crime/deviance as a lower-class phenomenon d. Androcentric bias. Early functionalist theories were developed exclusively focused on male experience. They either ignored females or assumed all experience was similar.

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15. Theoretical and empirical research has responded to some of these criticisms by analyzing non-criminal forms of deviance that extend beyond the lower class (e.g. using strain theory to analyze the pursuit of celebrity/fame), and by analyzing gender differences (e.g. microanomie; differential experiences of strain and negative affect). Contemporary theories, general strain theory in particular, have generated a resurgence in functional theories of deviance.

16. Learning theories propose that deviance is learned from others, and that it is a process. The learning theories that have been the most utilized and have had significant impacts on the sociology of deviance include differential association theory, neutralization theory, and social learning theory.

17. Edwin Sutherland’s differential association theory states that deviance and conformity are both learned through the same process. Within small, intimate groups, individuals are exposed to the techniques of and motives for deviance and/or conformity. If the individual is exposed to relatively more “deviant” than “conforming” techniques and motives, that individual is likely to become deviant. These small group interactions are influenced by: a. frequency (i.e. how often an individual interacts with a specific group) b. duration (i.e. how long the interactions with a specific group typically are) c. priority (i.e. how early in life these interactions occur) d. intensity (i.e. how important a specific group is to an individual) Research on the “jamband” subculture suggests that some of these factors may have more of an influence than others.

18. In Sykes and Matza’s neutralization theory, the emphasis is on those “motives” of deviance that Sutherland referred to. They claim that people rationalize their deviance with techniques of neutralization, which include: a. denial of responsibility: “It’s not my fault!” (e.g. claiming that there is nothing else to do in a small town) b. denial of injury: “I’m not hurting anyone!” (e.g. cross-dressing) c. denial of the victim: “He deserved it!” (e.g. Matthew Shepard) d. condemnation of the condemners: “Who are you to tell me that I’m doing something wrong?” (e.g. Hippies) e. appealing to higher loyalties: “I did it for a higher purpose.” (e.g. terrorism) This theory is central to explaining why people engage in deviance. Only by being able to rationalize their actions do people become deviant.

19. Social learning theory proposes that deviance emerges based on definitions (i.e. attitudes about the acceptability of behaviours), differential association (i.e. with whom one associates), imitation, and differential reinforcement (i.e. rewards and punishments). This theory is based on behavioural theories that come from social psychology and demonstrate that it is not just our own personal experiences but also observing the experiences of others that influence our behaviour. Social learning theory is easily observed in daily life (e.g. giving children a “time out”; arresting someone that has committed a crime; concerns over violence in the media; having school mentoring programs to provide children with “role models”). Research is inconsistent at identifying which aspects of social learning are most

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significant. a. Akers (1998, 2000,2006) adapted his theory to integrate structural factors (differential social organization, differential location in the social structure, structural variables, differential social location). He recognizes that different people experience different contexts in social life, and that changes which learning happens.

20. Criticisms of learning theories include: a. Differential association theory has been criticized on methodological grounds, and its use of escape clauses and qualifications. While it seems to make sense, it has remained challenging to test methodologically. b. Neutralization theory has been criticized on two grounds. First, it has been criticized for not considering variations across groups of people and normative contexts; researchers have responded to this critique by looking at such variations, finding different techniques being used by different groups of white-collar criminals, and by people purchasing fireworks in two different contexts. Second, questions have been raised about whether the techniques are those of pre-act neutralization or post-act justification. The outcome is that research is unable to conclude whether justifications actually contribute to occurrence of the act, or merely act as a justification after.

21. Social control theories are also considered to be positivist theories. It is important to note that these theories are distinct from the idea of ‘social control’ in terms of social response to deviance. Social control theories ask why everyone isn’t deviant. They propose that deviance is inherently appealing, but social control in terms of restraint keep people from acting on it.

They examine the mechanisms that restrain most of us from deviance.

22. Travis Hirschi’s social bonds theory suggests that four different types of social bonds restrain most of us from deviance. This theory has been applied to substance use and youth crime. a. The bond of attachment refers to the emotional bonds we have with significant others in our lives. b. The bond of commitment refers to the investment that we have in the conventional world, such that we have “too much to lose” to seriously consider engaging in deviance. c. The bond of involvement refers to the amount of time we spend in the conventional world, which makes most of us “too busy” for deviance. (idle hands) d. The bond of belief refers to the extent to which most of us accept the norms, values, and assumptions of the conventional world.

23. Research by Koeppel and Chism (2018) suggests that social bonds theory does not apply to all people the same way. While comparing substance use between heterosexual and homosexual participants, they found that all bonds were weaker in their non-heterosexual sample. They propose that there is a need to recognize social position and experience when discussing the influence of social bonds.

24. More recently, Travis Hirschi developed a social control theory with Michael Gottfredson, self-control theory (which was previously known as the general theory of crime). This theory proposes that self-control prevents most of us from becoming deviant. An individual’s

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level of self-control is the result of the effectiveness of parenting he or she has grown up with, although other influences in life may modify that influence to some extent. This theory has been applied to criminal and analogous behaviours (e.g. risky driving; unsafe sexual practices), as well as adventure-seeking behaviours (e.g. skydiving).

25. Self-control theory has been criticized because of the way that self-control is defined and measured and for ignoring the role of peer associations in deviant outcomes. The tautological and arguably biased logic have led to questions about the validity of this theory and research.

26. Integrating social bonds theory and self-control theory with other theories has been done with some success. For example, connected self-control theory with learning theory can help explain behaviours like impaired driving.

27. Positivist theories dominated academic understandings of deviance for many years. However, as more subjective views of deviance developed and become more widespread, different types of theories became useful. Just as certain types of theory correspond with more objective views of deviance, other kinds of theory correspond with more subjective ways of looking at deviance—that is, interpretive and critical theories (covered in next chapter).

TEACHING SUGGESTIONS FOR ACTIVE LEARNING 1. The Ask Yourself questions and Exercise Your Mind boxes located throughout the chapter can be used as discussion points in class, or as a journaling exercise.

2. To understand Durkheim’s suggestion that deviance can be functional, have students imagine what its functions are and what they could look like with specific examples. a. Halloween, Mardi Gras, Masquerades, ComicCon, etc. offer an interesting opportunity to discuss rule bending and tension relief that is offered. b. Examine specific experiences or events that lead to a re-affirmation of social rules and boundaries (9-11) or look at times when this could have happened but did not seem to (COVID). A great opportunity to dissect the strengths and challenges of this theory. c. Have students discuss when functional deviance tips into becoming dysfunctional. What does this look like? What are the ‘tipping’ factors?

3. Go to the website for Statistics Canada to find the most recent data on hate crimes. Discuss different theories to explain the trends (e.g. race and ethnicity as the most common reason for victimization; hate crimes based on sexual orientation as far more violent; adolescents and young adults as the most likely perpetrators).

4. To illustrate Parnaby and Sacco’s (2004) application of strain theory to the pursuit of celebrity/fame: a. Clips from YouTube can be shown in class. b. Alternatively, students (individually or in groups) can be assigned the task of finding clips that reflect each of the modes of adaptation. c. In some cases, aspiring actors and musicians place videos on the site in the hopes that

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their talent will be discovered (innovation). For example, one well known case was of a young woman suffering from depression, who kept an online video diary on YouTube; it was later discovered that she was an actress who was not suffering from depression at all. d. In other cases, people who have videos on the site may be engaged in ritualism, having abandoned dreams of fame and fortune, but continue to go through the motions.

Ritualism is also apparent in the many personal video blogs on the site, ranging from how to apply eye makeup to rants on social issues and current events.

5. Connect students with a few of the research articles mentioned throughout the chapter related to different theories. Be intentional about choosing some that relate to crime, and others that discuss non-criminal deviance. Encourage students to read some of the research to see how theory and research are connected. Students often struggle to see how we use theory in practice, which makes theory feel abstract and harder to understand. Providing time and opportunity to consciously see theory in action will help them develop deeper understanding of each perspective. a. You could do this work together, in small groups, or as an assignment where they annotate the article. b. This could be done in synchronous or asynchronous learning activities.

6. The website for The Sociological Cinema (www.thesociologicalcinema.com) includes a segment on Merton’s strain theory in the critically acclaimed TV show The Wire. There are two video clips that can be shown, and the accompanying discussion describes the different modes of adaptation that are reflected in specific characters in those clips.

7. Prior to discussing the research done on social solidarity before and after the mass shootings at Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 2006, instructors can show one of the numerous tribute videos that can be found on YouTube. Students should be directed to look for signs of social solidarity in the tribute video, such as diverse groups of people holding hands or hugging each other, candlelight vigils, memorials, people signing tribute walls, signs from other universities proclaiming “We are all Hokies today”, and more.

VIDEO SUGGESTIONS ❖ Hook, H. (Director), & Golding, W. (Writer). (1990). Lord of the Flies. Metro Goldwyn Mayer. ❖ Polak, H., & Celinski, A. (Directors & Producers). The Children of Leningradsky. National Film Board of Canada. ❖ Abu-Saada, L. et al. (2020). The Business of Drugs. Netflix. ❖ Hutchison, P. (2019). Healing from Hate. Media Education Foundation.

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WEBSITE SUGGESTIONS ❖ http://www.thesociologicalcinema.com This website contains video clips and accompanying discussions that instructors can use to demonstrate a variety of sociological concepts, including those related to crime/law/deviance. ❖ http://www.youtube.com This website contains an endless supply of people who are pursuing their own 15 minutes of fame and celebrity status.

The School of Life is a channel on YouTube that creates short (5-10 min) videos about topics and people. There are several related to sociology, criminology or deviance. ❖ https://thecrashcourse.com/courses/sociology This website has a variety of educational videos that help explain sociology in engaging and interesting ways. It is free, and has videos on crime, theory, deviance, gender, stratification, etc. ❖ https://www.thoughtco.com/deviance-and-crime-4133510 This website is created and maintained by experts, creating educational content to provide information on subjects in an interesting and approachable way.

NEWS ARTICLE SUGGESTIONS ❖ McAleer, T. (2021). A Former Neo-Nazi’s Guide to Deprogramming Trump Cultists. The Daily Beast.

This article is written by a former white nationalist who offers insights on how to reach extremists post Capitol Riot. Could be connected to several theories from Chapter 2 around why people do what they do. ❖ Kennedy, R. (2019). Why Students Cheat and How to Stop It. ThoughtCo. This article looks at a relatable form of deviance and allows students to apply the theories in a way that is meaningful to their lives and experience.

APPLY WHAT YOU KNOW 1. Search the web to find the following audio clip, available on www.npr.org: Chapter 2 audio clip: “Crime Study Challenges Past Assumptions” (5:04 minutes) In this audio clip, Dr. Felton Earls, from the Harvard School of Public Health, is interviewed on National Public Radio (NPR) in the United States. The results of his $51 million study of urban crime challenge the common assumption (as well as some functionalist theories) that crime is more prevalent in lower-class, rundown neighbourhoods (which is broadly referred to as “broken window theory” in the audio clip).

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Earls found that urban crime is not associated with the socioeconomic status or racial composition of a neighbourhood, but rather the level of social cohesion among people living there. Social cohesion was measured, in part, by respondents’ answers to questions about how adults in the neighbourhood would respond if they saw a child in need or a teenager spraying graffiti on a wall; Earls found that social cohesion was also not related to the socioeconomic status or racial composition of a neighbourhood.

Social cohesion is enhanced in a variety of ways, including community policing, after school programs, community programs, and community gardens; of importance is engaging youth ages 10 through 17.

For use in class, the following discussion questions can be posed: a. The audio clip refers to the “broken window theory” of deviance. Which of the theories in the chapter most closely correspond to that concept? b. Dr. Earls emphasizes the importance of high levels of social cohesion in a community, to prevent crime. Which of the theories in the chapter does that claim best fit into? c. Dr. Earls proposes that a variety of community programs for those ages 10 through 17 is associated with lower crime rates. Which of the theories in the chapter best explains that relationship? d. How do the findings of Dr. Earls’ study on urban crime contradict sociological theories of deviance? Can you think of some explanations to account for Dr. Earls’ results?

2. Return to the activity in Chapter 1 where students spent time discussing Terrorism. Apply theories from Chapter 2 to that conversation. a. What questions would you ask if adopting a certain theory? For example, Could one use Durkheim’s theory on functional deviance when talking about terrorism? b. Are there some theories that make more sense than others in relation to studying terrorism? c. Does the type and context of terrorism matter? d. How would different theories look at the same example of deviance, but in different ways? e. What would the research look like?

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Chapter 3: Explaining Deviance: The Perception, Reaction, and Power LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students should be able to: 3.1 Explain how theories developed using an interpretive approach view the topic of deviance and describe how symbolic interactionism serves as a foundation for other theories.

3.2 Describe such concepts as labelling, stigmatization, transition from primary to secondary deviance, the dramatization of evil, deviance as a master status, and the deviant career.

3.3 Identify the limitations of interpretive theories and the responses to those limitations.

3.4 Explain how theories developed using a critical approach address the topic of deviance.

3.5 Describe conflict theories, power-reflexive theories, feminist theories, and postmodern theories.

3.6 Identify the limitations of critical theories and the responses to those limitations.

LECTURE OUTLINE 1. The previous chapter addressed positivist theories, which are particularly useful to sociologists of deviance who lean toward the more objective end of the objective- subjective continuum. In this chapter, the theories addressed are those that are useful to sociologists of deviance who lean toward the more subjective end of the continuum. These are called interpretive theories and critical theories.

2. Subjective deviance scholars tend to support the idea that deviance has more to do with social context, that it cannot be identified just by looking at it. a. Interpretive theories emphasize the social meanings that emerge from interactions between individuals, and the subsequent interpretations individuals have of certain acts, characteristics, or people. b. Critical theories emphasize the perceptions of and reactions to the deviant act (characteristic, or person), as well as the role of power in determining these perceptions and reactions. They often have a self-reflective, value-orienting foundation (Stepnisky, 2018), that is, an underlying interest in emancipation and working toward social justice.

There is a particular interest in the social construction of deviance.

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3. Symbolic interactionist theory is the foundation for the range of interpretive theories used to study deviance. “Society is not a structure but rather a process” (Blumer, 1986). From a symbolic interactionist perspective, social action emerges from meaning, and meaning is created through interactions with others. The foundation for our interactions with others is communication through symbols. Our communication can be verbal, but it can also be the many non-verbal ways that we interact (eye rolling, a middle finger). We have ‘cues’ that are physical, conversational and interactional that allow us to categorize and identify those around us. In other words, society is made up of people in constant communication with each other, and this is the source of all meaning and understanding. a. Role-taking refers to the process by which we place ourselves in the roles of others to determine what they think about certain acts, characteristics, or people. b. The concept of the looking-glass self refers to our tendency to imagine what other people think of us, which then influences what we think of ourselves and what courses of action we take. c. Significant others are those people who are especially important to us, whose points of view have an influence on our own points of view. d. The generalized other is a more abstract notion of “people” more generally. We might ask ourselves, “What would ‘people’ say if I did that?!” e. The above social processes contribute to each person’s own perception of what is “deviant” and what is “normal”. We learn, by watching others, what the rules are and what happens when they are broken. It is an ongoing, interactive, iterative process. f. What sociocultural and individual forces influence people’s understanding of deviance?

The “deviance dance” exists because there are different points of view, formed based on different social experiences about who should be considered deviant and how they should be treated.

4. Labelling theories reflect some of the core assumptions of interactionism. While there are specific labelling theories, they all refer to the same general process: When deviant labels are attached to individuals, others begin to perceive and treat the labelled individual differently, which creates changes in how they perceive themselves and their subsequent behaviours and lifestyles.

5. Tannenbaum (1939) speaks of this process using the terminology of tagging and the dramatization of evil. When an individual is caught at deviance, tagging occurs, whereby a deviant “tag” is attached. That deviant label is first only applied to the act, but soon is generalized to this person (i.e. the dramatization of evil); thus, it is no longer just the behaviour that is “bad”, but rather the entire person is “bad.”

6. Lemert (1951) describes this same process in a slightly different way. He proposes that many people engage in primary deviance (rule breaking) but are rarely noticed by others. Most people do not develop deviant lifestyles. a. The process of being caught at deviance sets a series of events in motion that eventually result in secondary deviance (a lifestyle and identity). b. A deviant label is attached, the conventional world begins to reject the labelled person, and the deviant world becomes the only place where that person feels a sense of belonging.

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7. Becker (1963) introduced the idea of a master status. A master status is a characteristic that defines you. It is one of the first things people think of or notice about you. If that master status is deviant, it impacts daily life, such as limiting opportunities, or framing how others perceive and then treat you. a. The process of being excluded from a conforming world is what draws one into secondary deviance.

8. Goffman (1959; 1963) also refers to this process of labelling. A labelled person faces stigmatization, becoming an “outsider” in the mainstream world. a. Goffman outlines three types of stigma (physical, moral, and group). b. He also recognizes that people experience stigma by association, which is when you are impacted by the stigma of those close to you. c. Goffman’s work centres on impression management. People will attempt to control what others know of them to ensure that they fit into the group. d. The dramaturgical approach represents life as a theatrical stage, where different levels of impression management are necessary for the front stage (control the images that we present and the messages that we convey to the audience) self compared to the backstage self (where we are our true selves). e. If we are able to hide stigma, we are more successful at fitting in. However, if it is impossible to hide, or someone finds out about our stigma, we have a spoiled identity.

When this happens, we have to adjust how we manage what others see of us. For instance, male sex workers in Hong Kong use strategies that both reduce the stigma of sex work and negotiate responsible and respectable masculinity. They reframe their job titles, reaffirm their agency, emphasize the generalizability of their skill set, draw attention to their superior income, and describe safe sex practices as indicative of a strong work ethic.

9. Kitsuse (1980) addresses tertiary deviance. With this process, some individuals who have made the transition from primary to secondary deviance may resist the “deviant” nature of the label that has been attached. Instead, they attempt to change social norms so that their behaviour or characteristic becomes accepted within the larger society. An example may be the LGBTQ2IA+ social movement or more recent discussions around neurodiversity.

10. The notion of the deviant career is another interpretive approach to the study of deviance (Becker, 1963). People who are engaged in deviance progress through a series of stages, with multiple possible paths. Career contingencies (turning points) determine the direction a person takes within their “deviant career”, which can include leaving deviance behind altogether. a. Contemporary research has examined what the contingencies may be, or how people ‘exit’ deviance. This knowledge can be very useful for those hoping to influence policy or programs supporting the transition out of deviant lifestyles.

11. Interpretive theories have been criticized for failing to address the social structure and its role in the processes surrounding deviance and normality; however, empirical and theoretical researchers have responded to this criticism by integrating interpretive and structural components to explain phenomena and the long-term effects of labelling on criminal

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behaviour. Interpretive theories have also been integrated with non-structural positivist theories to better explain other phenomena.

12. Interpretive theories give considerable insight into the processes by which deviance develops in people’s lives, as well as how the different points of view that characterize the “deviance dance” are possible.

13. However, interpretive theories are unable to explain why certain acts or characteristics are more likely than others to be labelled as “deviant”. They are also unable to explain why the points of view of some groups are more able than others to determine the direction of the “deviance dance”. Critical theories focus their attention on precisely those issues.

14. A critical approach to studying deviance includes a range of theoretical perspectives: Marxist, non-Marxist conflict theories, non-conflict critical theories, feminist, postmodern, critical race theory, etc. a. Common elements in these theories are that they examine power. Society’s powerful are able to construct the dominant moral codes. They are able to create and apply labels, create rules and deviantize others, in order to maintain their position. b. They are also interested in using knowledge to inspire action. Karl Marx stated that social scientists have a responsibility to use their work to bring positive social change, he called this Praxis.

15. Conflict theories share three assumptions: a. Social rules emerge out of conflict and serve the interests of society’s most powerful groups. b. Members of powerful groups are less likely to break the rules, because the rules were created on their behalf. c. Members of powerless groups are more likely to break the rules, because: • alienation causes them to act out in rule breaking ways.

• the social rules have defined the acts of the powerless as “deviant”.

16. Karl Marx is typically perceived as the founder of conflict theory. He stated that the exploitation of the proletariat (the wage earners who work for the people who own the means of production) by the bourgeoisie (those who own the means of production) creates a sense of alienation among the proletariat, resulting in deviant behaviour. a. Instrumental Marxists claim that social rules are created by the powerful to serve their own needs. A deviant label is a means to control the powerless. (Quinney, 1977) b. Structural Marxists claim that social rules are created by the powerful to protect the capitalist system. A deviant label may be attached to anyone who threatens the capitalist system, regardless of power. (Chambliss & Seidman, 1982) 17. Pluralist conflict theories emphasize multiple axes of inequality or power in society, rather than just an economic axis.

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18. Cultural conflict theories propose that the dominant culture within a society imposes its norms on everyone, even though other cultures within that society have varying norms. a. For example: Bill 21 (Laicity Act) in Quebec (2019) bans public employees from wearing religious symbols to work. Critics argued that this is a violation of human rights, plus it targets specific religions more than others.

19. Group conflict theory addresses groups struggling for power in society, each group attempting to win the support of authorities. a. Vold extends this beyond culture to other groups as well. b. Turk states that the struggle is between “those who are in positions of authority and those who are subject to authority”.

20. The “rules” as perceived by powerful groups are imposed on all of the groups that make up society as a whole. They are able to determine what is ‘normal’ and what is ‘deviant’. They have control over the social typing process and are able to eliminate or disqualify competing groups. a. Sometimes it is not just the interests of non-dominant groups that are deviantized, but rather the group themselves. This has been seen in the policies and practices of policing.

The rise of the #BlackLivesMatter social movement is in response to evidence and lived experiences of racial profiling and institutionalized discriminatory practices.

21. In modern democratic societies, powerful groups cannot simply coerce powerless groups.

Instead, they must convince the powerless that the social rules are legitimate. Different types of conflict theorists have used varying concepts to explain how this is done. a. Ideology (Marx). In its broad sense, to refer to the worldview (a way of seeing and understanding the world) held by society’s powerful groups – a worldview based on the interests and needs of the powerful. b. Hegemony (Gramsci). An idea supported by powerful groups becomes the dominant way of seeing and understanding the world. c. False consciousness (Frankfurt School). People come to perceive the dominant ideology as rational and acceptable, in fact, it is often normalized so that people no longer question it. Consequently, people do not realize that they have been conned and come to believe that they have more freedom than they do.

22. Power-reflexive theories are a second category of critical theory. These theories emphasize the intertwining of knowledge and power. Multiple discourses (i.e. bodies of knowledge) exist in society, but relations of power determine which discourses come to be perceived as legitimate. Certain groups have the ability and framework to determine what ‘truth’ looks like. They establish what belief systems we have and what knowledge is legitimate. a. Michel Foucault (1995) not only theorizes the relationship between power and knowledge, exploring the power of ‘claims-makers’ and their control over social institutions. b. Foucault also discusses how the pervasiveness of regulatory mechanisms to ensure “normality” within a panoptical society results in the most effective form of social control, self-surveillance or self-regulation. c. The rise of industrialization and bureaucratization have supported this panopticon

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society, where people voluntarily give up freedoms in order to ensure efficiency or safety. Sharing information, allowing invasive surveillance, allowing ourselves to be sorted by gender, becomes normal and ‘for our own good’. d. According to Foucault, power is always accompanied by resistance.

23. Feminist theories are a third category of critical theory. While there are a number of different feminist theories that exist, they have a few assumptions in common. a. Early academic research has traditionally been male-oriented and they fail to address female experience. b. Deviance is gendered. The gendered nature of socially constructed norms and dominant moral codes determine what is considered “deviant” and what is “normal” or even “ideal”. c. Research and theory are meant to be connected to social and political life.

24. Beyond those shared assumptions, feminist theories differ widely in their focus, position and topics. While some scholars study gender and its influence on a more generalized social experience (i.e. how being a woman influences gendered norms around sexuality or body image), more recent scholars adopt an intersectional lens, recognizing the complexity of identity on social experience and the fact that not all women’s experiences are the same. (The matrix of domination.)

25. Postmodern theories are a fourth category of critical theory, although there is some disagreement within academia about what constitutes “postmodern” theorizing, and whether it should be included in the category of critical theory. a. Such theories are broadly based on the rejection of theories of society, social categorization, and the possibility of “truth”. b. Skeptical postmodernism is solipsistic, postulating that knowledge is not possible and that only chaos and meaninglessness exist. In contrast, affirmative postmodernism deconstructs what are master narratives, overarching theories, or “knowledge” and focuses analysis on the local and specific. c. Rapid social change following World War II has changed the nature of existence.

• Society is now commercial rather than industrial.

• People are consumers rather than citizens.

• People are now nothing more than the image they are currently pursuing (the “end of the individual”).

• The jumble of contradictory and inconsistent messages people face contributes the erosion of any dominant moral codes by which “deviance” and “normality” can be judged.

• One of the primary contributions to the development of deviance discourse are the questions that are raised. Postmodern scholars question, problematize and challenge existing thoughts and practices, which is what makes them ‘critical’.

26. Critical theories have been critiqued for providing a description of a social process than an empirically verifiable theory. They offer insight into how “some people’s rules become society’s rules”, but have traditionally been unable to demonstrate clear, consistent research informed patterns or solutions.

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a. In response, theoretical integration has grown considerably. Various critical theories have been integrated with each other, for example, combining feminist and poststructuralist theories to explain the experiences of Indigenous women in Vancouver’s downtown east side. Critical theories have also been integrated with interpretive theories; for instance, interactionist and conflict theories are integrated to understand racial profiling within the criminal justice system.

27. Taken together, interpretive and critical theories provide explanations of the social construction of deviance, that is the creation and application of society’s dominant moral codes. a. Interpretive theories address the social interactions that create diverse understandings of deviance, as well as the experiences and consequences of being labelled “deviant”. b. Critical theories draw attention to the role of power in the social construction of deviance, such that some groups have greater influence than others on the knowledge claims that become institutionalized in society.

TEACHING SUGGESTIONS FOR ACTIVE LEARNING 1. The Ask Yourself questions and Exercise Your Mind boxes located throughout the chapter can be used as discussion points in class, or as a journaling exercise.

2. Instructors can introduce the notion of diverse understandings or meanings that are addressed within symbolic interactionism by initiating a class discussion on an issue that they know will be characterized by many different points of view among their students. a. Examples of such issues are doctor-assisted suicide, no-smoking bylaws, capital punishment, and marijuana use. b. Ask students what their points of view on that issue are, encouraging the expression of as many different interpretations as possible; Give students time to discuss, or to write down, the factors and experiences that contribute to the different interpretations, either in the context of their own lives or at a less personal level. c. If students are reluctant to share their own views, rephrase the question by asking students to list the different points of view that they know “people” have about the issue.

A great way to do this is to find an article or social media post online that addresses something controversial. Have students read the comments of the people and look for themes in their responses. d. Instructors can draw upon the students’ list of contributing factors to illustrate concepts such as role playing (i.e. imagining what other people’s interpretations or experiences are, such as someone who is homeless), significant others (i.e. people who are important to them have similar interpretations), and the generalized other (i.e. they think that “people” in society have the same interpretation). e. * A pedagogical caution – this requires a trauma-informed approach to the topic and conversation you select. Some topics will be more triggering to your students depending on the makeup of your student body. It is advised that a clear expectation is set early in the course regarding conduct, as well as choice in the material students are asked to review and discuss, and what to do if things become too much.

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3. Students’ comments in the previous exercise may also be drawn into later discussions of critical theories. Instructors should ask students about why, if there are different understandings of the issue that was previously discussed, specific understandings become institutionalized (e.g. the creation of no-smoking bylaws; the criminalization of marijuana in the 1920s and its subsequent decriminalization in certain regions; a government’s decision to have, or not have, capital punishment). a. The documentary Grass is an entertaining, but informative examination of the evolution of the criminalization of marijuana in the US. (see reference under “Video Suggestions”). b. This discussion leads to the role of power in the social construction of deviance—some groups have more power to have their interpretations of an issue institutionalized. Some of the students’ comments in the previous exercise may point to economic forces, cultural forces, gendered forces, or other forces that influence the different interpretations as well as the power to legitimize those interpretations; if so, those student comments serve as a natural starting point for each of the critical theories in the chapter.

4. Material from the website for the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) (see reference under “Website Suggestions”) is a useful tool for students in trying to identify the type(s) of conflict theory reflected in the ideology of this political party. Instructors can direct students to the website, or alternatively may print out some of the material to hand out to students in class. The website includes information and discussion papers on current social issues (e.g. education funding cuts) that reflect the party’s ideology, which students can then analyze in the context of conflict theories. If instructors wish to add an additional challenge to students, they should hand out one of the discussion papers without telling students that it is from the Communist Party of Canada, so that students must first determine that they have to narrow their focus to the section on conflict theories. This activity also works nicely as a group activity.

5. The video Freedom Had a Price (see reference under “Video Suggestions”) is about the internment of Ukrainian-Canadians (and other social groups) as “enemy aliens” during World War I. This video reflects aspects of both interpretive theories (e.g. labelling of “enemy aliens”) and critical theories (e.g. power relations; surveillance). In 2013, a commemorative pavilion opened in Banff National Park: “Enemy Aliens, Prisoners of War: Canada’s First World War Internment Operations, 1914-1920.” The contrast between the internees’ experiences described in the video and the creation of this new national historic site also illustrates the socially constructed nature of deviance and normality.

6. Have the students push around a baby stroller or something similar (borrowed) for a full day.

Students will gain a firsthand understanding of the physical barriers to getting around, and may discover how people respond to them in so many new ways. Rather than emulate someone with a disability, this exercise provides a small glimpse into the physical and structural barriers one might experience and the judgement of everyday interactions.

7. Assign or review together the video “My Son was a Columbine Shooter: This is My Story” (see reference under Video Suggestions). This 15-min TEDtalk is a poignant discussion on Stigma and the idea of Stigma by Association. It also relates to future lectures on youth and

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mental health. a. Students find this video very powerful and admit that it forces them to shift their focus from the perpetrators to the people around them who also would have been impacted by the tragic event.

8. The TEDTalk “We are all hiding something. Let’s Find the Course to Open Up” (See reference under Video Suggestions), is another powerful conversation that relates to Stigma, Impression Management and the process many go through to hide parts of themselves.

Beckham introduces the idea of a ‘closet’ and also highlights the constructions of gender and sexuality. Only 9 minutes, this talk offers a number of connections to material from Chapter 3.

VIDEO SUGGESTIONS ❖ Luhovy, Y. (Director), Haig, D., Luhovy, Y., Hyrcenko, Z., & Hirsch, K. (Producers) (1994).

Freedom Had a Price. National Film Board of Canada. ❖ Radford, M. (Director & Writer), & Orwell, G. (Writer). (1984). Nineteen Eighty- Four.

Metro Goldwyn Mayer. ❖ Mann, R. (Director). (1999). Grass: The History of Marijuana. TopDocumentaryFilms or Vimeo. ❖ Klebold, S. (Presenter). (2017). My Son was a Columbine shooter. This is my story. TED or YouTube. ❖ Beckham, A. (Speaker). (2013). We’re all hiding something. Let’s find the courage to open up. TED or YouTube.

WEBSITE SUGGESTIONS ❖ http://www.sfu.ca/crj.html This is the official website for The Centre for Restorative Justice, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia. ❖ http://www.thesocietypages.org Navigate to the “Teaching TSP” tab of The Society Pages, a social sciences resource for instructors and students. On this site, instructors can find a variety of audio, video, and print resources for classroom activities. Search “deviance” to bring up relevant resources on this page.

Of particular relevance to this chapter is the British documentary “The Road from Crime” (48:21 minutes), which illustrates the ways labelling and stigmatization set the stage for reoffending for ex-convicts.

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❖ http://www.cpcml.ca This website for the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) reflects some of the assumptions of conflict theories. These assumptions are also applied to information and discussions about specific current issues and events (e.g. education funding). ❖ https://johnhoward.ca/category/blog/ This website is created and maintained by the John Howard Society of Canada. The blog is updated regularly with thoughts and information about crime, perspectives from criminals and other related information.

The blog A Brutal Murder – Why Adjectives Matter Describing Crime (Post 162). is a great reflection on the social construction of crime in the media. ❖ https://humanlibrary.org/ The Human Library is a “learning platform” and social movement that “turns people into books”. The idea is to create a safe and voluntary space where people are introduced to the story and perspective of diverse, often mis-understood groups of people. It is a fascinating opportunity to think about in terms of our research on deviance and trying to foster empathy and humanize ALL people, behaviours and conversations.

An Extending assignment could be to create something similar in your classroom or wider community.

NEWS ARTICLE SUGGESTIONS ❖ Tufekci, Z. (2020). The Pandemic is No Excuse to Surveil Students. The Atlantic.

This article provides a timely and relevant conversation about technology, tracking and monitoring. While it talks about apps for contact tracing, the same conversation could be extended to software and processes set up to manage student ‘cheating’ as well. ❖ Kingsley, E. (2020). It’s Time for Society to Catch Up with Science. ADDitude: Inside the ADHD Mind.

This article ties in well to the experience of many with learning impairments. It offers the opportunity to discuss behaviour and how it becomes synonymous with the person (dramatization of evil). ❖ Mooallem, J. (2015). You Just Got Out of Prison. Now What? New York Times.

This article (and an embedded short video) gives students a sense of the experience for those leaving prison. It references changes in sentencing and justice philosophy as they have changed with social and political times. It also offers insight to the interactions and internal struggles as former prisoners adjust in conventional life.

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APPLY WHAT YOU KNOW 1. Search the web to find the following video clip, available on YouTube: Chapter 3 Video Clip: The Stanford Prison Experiment (8:11 minutes) This video clip documents social psychologist Philip Zimbardo’s classic Stanford Prison Experiment. Participants (who were university students) were assigned the role of either prisoner or guard in a mock prison set up in the basement of one of the buildings on campus.

The clip begins with the “arrest” of participants in their own homes and communities, with neighbours watching. It goes on with footage of the study itself, as both the “prisoners” and “guards” come to internalize those labels and act accordingly; however, the video describes that there were a variety of ways that different participants reacted to their roles. Participants are interviewed two months later, discussing how quickly they lost their real identities, and came to see themselves as the prisoner number they had been assigned. Zimbardo is also interviewed (some years later), describing how even his own thoughts and behaviours changed in response to his role as “warden”. It was one of his research assistants who drew his attention to the extent to which people’s identities and behaviours had changed, creating concerns for participants’ psychological well-being; consequently, Zimbardo halted the study prematurely.

For use in class, the following discussion questions can be posed: a. What role did the looking-glass self play in the experiences of the prisoners and/or guards? b. Where did you see identity/impression management techniques being used? c. Participants were students attending the same university. After the study was halted, how do you think the “prisoners” and “guards” might have reacted when running into each other on campus. Which theories from Chapter 3 would you use to support your thoughts? d. After the study was halted, what might the “prisoners” have experienced when returning to their homes, where their neighbours had seen them “arrested” by actual campus police officers? e. Consider the actions of students who were randomly assigned to be guards and prisoners.

How does their behaviour in the experiment support labelling theory? f. Does their behaviour tell us anything about the nature of power relations in society at large?

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Chapter 4: Deviance 2.0: The Role of the Media LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students should be able to: 4.1 Define media and identify the many forms it takes.

4.2 Explain why it is important for sociologists to study media.

4.3 Describe patterns of media use and the nature of their impact.

4.4 Distinguish between administrative and critical approaches to media studies in terms of what they study and the nature of their findings.

4.5 Outline five different types of relationships that characterize the media–deviance nexus

LECTURE OUTLINE 1. The media are vehicles used to transmit information as forms of communication. It is able to target mass audiences and ranges from telegraph and written letters, radio and television, to smart phones, music/video streaming and social network platforms (Instagram, TikTok, or Twitter).

2. Canadians use various forms of media throughout their daily lives, it is now argued to be almost invisible, because it is ubiquitous. In 2018, the greatest amount of time was spent watching television and using the Internet, the least amount of time was spent reading newspapers and magazines. While media use increased significantly between 2001 and 2018 (from 56 hours per week to 64 hours per week) some media use is simulmedia, using more than one form of media simultaneously. When simulmedia is considered, the total amount of time spent using media remained relatively stable between 2001 and 2018. However, the patterns of media use did change. Use of some forms of media declined over that period, particularly radio and magazines while other forms increased – especially the Internet.

3. Patterns of media use vary across age groups. Adults 55+ spent approximately 38 hours per week watching television, whereas youth 18-24 only spent 14 hours. However when studying time spent online, those patterns reversed, with 55+ online for approximately 12 hours, while 18-34 were 25+ hours online. The use of social media has increased for all groups. Facebook, YouTube and Instagram were the most used in Canada. It is believed that use of all media forms combined is extensive, well over 50 hours each week.

4. Media matters, not only because we spend so much time using it, but also because of its impact. The media is one of the core pedagogical forces in contemporary society as it provides the primary means by which people learn about themselves, others, and the world .

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around them. It defines social problems, shapes public debates, and defines boundaries between groups.

5. As a key site of social inclusion and exclusion, it is through the media (at least in part) that we learn who the “Other” is that we should be concerned about. Stigmatized others are presented as threats to the way of life of decent people. Absolute others are presented as inherently evil and include those who commit exceptional crimes, such as suicide bombers, pedophiles who kill children, and children who commit acts of murder. Precisely where specific others are located on this continuum is constantly changing in response to shifting public concerns and cultural sensibilities.

6. There are two different approaches to studying the media, which correspond to the interests of deviance scholars who lean towards each of the more objective end and more subjective end of the objective-subjective continuum: administrative approaches and critical approaches.

7. Administrative approaches to media studies correspond to more objectivist deviance interests. They focus on the effects of media messages on individuals’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, utilizing positivist theorizing in their explanations.

8. One of the primary areas of administrative research on media is the effects of advertising. We encounter more than 5000 advertisements every day, an increase of ten times since the 1970s. a. Research on the effects of advertising is governed by the question of who says what to whom, and with what effects. Characteristics of the source of the message (e.g. the model in the advertisement), the content of the message, and the audience interact to determine the specific effects. While brand placement or product placement continue to happen, more subtle digital advertising placement happen through streaming. Digital advertising is able to target specific individuals on the sites they use most through collection of personal data points and browsing history. b. Advertising is effective. When people are repeatedly exposed to particular brands, their brand recognition increases, they develop positive associations with those brands, and they intend to purchase those brands.

9. However, the single-most researched topic in studies of media is the effects of media violence. a. Correlational studies analyze the significance of the relationship between watching media and acting out aggressively. Collectively these studies find that there is a small, but statistically significant relationship between media violence and aggression.

Children/youth who watch more violent television measure higher in aggression.

Correlational research is not able to determine whether violent television causes aggression in viewers; it may be that individuals who are more aggressive to begin with choose to engage with more violent media. b. Experimental studies have found short term effects of media violence (e.g. music lyrics/ administering hot sauce; films/floor hockey aggression). However, effects are stronger for those people who are higher in aggression to begin with. Research on the

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long-term effects of media violence is unclear. c. Due to the fact that media does have an impact on mood, thoughts and actions, there are frequent calls to social control what content is seen and at what stage it is “appropriate”.

10. Critical approaches to media studies correspond to subjectivist deviance and focus on how the media constructs events, issues, and identities, as well as structures of power and processes of social control. Critical approaches dominate media studies in Canada, utilizing interpretive and critical theories.

11. One of the paths taken in critical approaches to media studies is analyses of media frames (i.e. the overall way that an issue is depicted in the media), which affect what we notice about reality, and how we come to understand social issues, other people, and ourselves. They focus on what is and is not included in media content. a. Framing Social Groups: media framing of social groups is significant and a central part of the social typing process. Racialized media framing of specific groups in biased ways constructs the social conversation and understanding of groups of people.

• Cui and Worrell (2019) identified three consistent frames in research talking to Chinese Canadian youth about how Chinese people are framed in media. (1) absence or inauthentic (2) racializing the body) (3) being a social threat.

• Opioid-related deaths are focused on young white victims, while most opioid related deaths happen for adults 30-54, with Indigenous people overrepresented (Johnson, 2000).

• Indigenous people are underrepresented in news stories in general and when they are, the images are biased and negative (Clark, 2014). b. Critical researchers argue that racialized media framing impacts at all levels of society and their absence erases them from social consciousness. Stuart Hall (2013) argues that media representations are not something outside of audience members, but rather representations and individuals become intertwined; that is, identity is formed within media representations. Thus, the media is an important agent of socialization: the frames used to present minorities may become integrated into the identities of children of those minorities. c. The media is a public sphere in which important issues are discussed; however, a community must have access to traditional media if their voices are to be heard. Media framing has an impact on social policy: “[If particular groups are consistently under represented, or represented as criminals, as unassailable immigrants, or as simply not belonging, then measures may be enacted that effectively curtail their rights” (Jiwani, 2010, p. 271).

12. Media content is embedded within larger structures of media ownership, which are characterized by increasing convergence (i.e. a company owns multiple forms of media), conglomeration (i.e. merging of media companies), and concentration (i.e. a small number of companies control most media products). In Canada, five corporate giants control virtually all the Canadian media, which is a greater convergence than most countries in the world. a. This matters because due to the increasing number of subsidiary companies, the distance between the parent company becomes greater and as a result, the focus becomes increasingly on profit.

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b. Conflicts of interest profit vs ethics/morality become greater. c. Concentration of ownership mean that a narrower range of ideas impact more and more forms of media. d. Media bias becomes a threat to democracy.

13. Media research and deviance research converge in a variety of ways. Administrative research shows that media can impact thinking and behaviour. This can be used by deviance scholars to examine how media messages on specific deviant behaviours (crime, substance use, sexuality) might influence their occurrence. Critical research connects media into larger social structures and shows that power and control influence everything (interactions, self concept, social institutions, norms, etc.).

14. Five different types of relationships exist between the media and deviance: a. the media as a cause of deviance b. the media constructs deviance and normality c. the media as a tool for deviance d. the media as a site of the deviance dance e. the deviantization of forms of media 15. As administrative approaches to media studies show us, media content can cause deviance (e.g. alcohol consumption; violent behaviour). This is an important issue when considering the effects of pornography on audiences (Chapter 5), and the social control of youth tobacco use (Chapter 6).

16. As critical approaches to media studies show us, the media plays a role in the social construction of deviance and normality (e.g. frames of ethnicity and gender). At later points in the textbook, the media’s role in this regard will be highlighted in a number of ways: sexual cultures (Chapter 5); moral panics and public perceptions of youth crime (Chapter 6); the normalization of body modification (Chapter 7); and the stigmatization of mental illness (Chapter 8).

17. The media can also be used as a tool for deviance. In contemporary society, there are a variety of forms of cyberdeviance (i.e. deviant acts using a computer), including cybercrime, digital piracy, and cyberbullying.

18. Cybercrime includes activities such as credit card fraud, identity theft, and hacking. Recent research has looked at contemporary crimes such as phishing, hacking and cyberterrorism. It examines what makes one a more likely target of cyber crime, or asks questions about what is considered hacking as compared to cyberterrorism or cyberespionage. a. Cyberterrorism refers to malicious hacking that threatens societal infrastructures.

Although it occurs online, it has many of the same characteristics as offline terrorism, even going back thousands of years (e.g. Zealots).

19. Hactivism is a form of hacking where individuals or groups used their skills as a form of social protect or activism. Groups like Anonymous have become well known for their intentional vigilante efforts to draw out corruption, crime or abuses of power (as they see it).

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20. Digital piracy refers to the illegal downloading of music, software, and video. Piracy itself is not a new phenomenon (e.g. tape recorders). However, the Internet facilitates piracy due to its anonymity, the speed in transmission, and a shift in mindset about “ownership.” a. A number of theories have been used in analyses of digital piracy. Differential association theory has been applied to the learning of techniques and motives, such as how to recognize files containing viruses. Techniques of neutralization are commonly used by digital pirates (e.g. deny injury; condemn the condemners). Interpretive theories explore processes of labelling and stigmatization within the pirating community, as well as the integration of “pirate” into individuals’ identities.

21. The media is a site of the deviance dance. The Media is a social typer of deviance. It shows who should be considered deviant, why, and what should be done about it. The multifaceted nature of the media makes the deviance dance inherent. a. The media is used as a tool to commit deviant acts, but it is also a tool used to exert social control on deviant acts. b. The media is a public forum for debate, therefore acting as a platform for the dance. c. The media is a tool used for resistance. Individuals and groups who have been stigmatized (disability, mental illness, race or ethnicity, LGBTQ2IA+) create online support communities and wide spread social movements. Hashtag activism has been used to change dominant moral codes (#MeToo, #IdleNoMore, #SayhisHame, etc.). d. The media is a site for decolonization. Sharing concepts and perspectives critical of existing and ongoing colonization use media as a platform to raise knowledge, experience and voices of formerly silenced groups.

22. The media itself can also be deviantized and subjected to measures of formal and informal social control. Whether is formal censorship and regulation, or informal monitoring and restrictions, media is seen as something that requires intervention and control. Youth forms of media are especially likely to be deviantized. Some forms of media are deviantized because of their presumed effects on youth (e.g. jazz music in the 1920s; heavy metal music in the 1980s). Other forms of media are deviantized because of their association with “troublesome” groups of youth (e.g. swing music subculture in Nazi Germany).

TEACHING SUGGESTIONS FOR ACTIVE LEARNING 1. The Ask Yourself questions and Exercise Your Mind boxes located throughout the chapter can be used as discussion points in class, or as a journaling exercise.

2. A particularly valuable exercise is one in which students analyze the frames of gender, race/ethnicity, and/or socioeconomic status in their three favourite television shows. Which groups are represented in those shows? Which groups are not represented, and what messages does their absence give viewers?

3. Divide the class into groups, and have them search online for their own examples of each of the five types of relationships between the media and deviance.

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4. Have students analyze a series of alcohol advertisements. What does a particular advertisement tell us about that specific brand of alcohol? What does it tell us about alcohol more generally? What does it tell us about society? In the subsequent class discussion, instructors can steer the discussion to the following topics: the cultural meaning of alcohol (i.e. “alcohol is ”); alcohol and identity; alcohol and gender; alcohol and power. It is especially interesting to contrast different types of advertisements, such as for different brands of the same alcohol (e.g. Skyy vodka; Grey Goose vodka), or for different types of alcohol (e.g. Crown Royal whiskey; Molson Canadian beer). An excellent resource for alcohol advertisements is the “Marketing Gallery” on the website for the Center for Alcohol Marketing and Youth (http://camy.org). Instructors can remind students of this discussion when the topic of binge drinking on university campuses (Chapter 6) comes up.

5. Although digital piracy is illegal, it is a widespread activity. This serves as a foundation for an interesting class discussion, preferably before lecturing on the topic. Digital piracy has been normalized to the extent that students tend to be very willing to discuss their own pirating activities. Why do they pirate material instead of purchasing it? How did they learn to do it? Should it be deviantized and subjected to social control, or not? Do they consider themselves to be a “digital pirate”? Who do they think should be labelled a “digital pirate”?

Students’ responses may point to differential association theory, techniques of neutralization, and interpretive theories (e.g. labelling).

6. Have students go to the Grinnell College website titled “Hackers” and learn more about the subculture, plus access a number of videos and related information about hackers. This is a student made page and could act as a model for an assignment using media to teach others about media. https://haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu/subcultures-and-scenes/hacker-subculture/ 7. Pre-assign or watch together the video “How Violent Media Affects Young People” (see in Video Suggestions). Encourage a conversation (live, on a forum, in a reflection journal) about the relationship between watching violence and acting in violent ways. Have students listen carefully to the words (correlation vs causation) and thinking about the way that research is presented to everyday people and how that would influence social perception and reactions, as well as social control.

8. Critical Media Review. (2015). What is Media Framing? This website is a well-designed discussion around the process of media framing. It has several important things for students to think about, as well as videos and links to relevant information. This could be provided as a supplement or again as an example of work students could do for a learning activity. https://criticalmediareview.wordpress.com/2015/10/19/what-is-media-framing/ 9. Encourage students to review lists of banned media. For example, Penguin Random House has a list of 15 Frequent Banned & Challenged Books, or Commonsense Media is a website to rate material based by age (see Website Suggestions). Have them think about why material has been banned or controlled, what research relates to this and what questions they have based on the material of this chapter.

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VIDEO SUGGESTIONS ❖ Stahl, R. (Writer & Director). (2011). Returning Fire: Interventions in Video Game Culture.

Media Education Foundation. ❖ Sun, C. F. (Writer & Producer), & Picker, M. (Director). (2001). Mickey Mouse Monopoly: Disney, Childhood, and Corporate Power. Media Education Foundation. ❖ Carter, T. (Director), & Feldman, J. M. (Writer). (1993). Swing Kids. Hollywood Pictures. ❖ The Morning Blend. (2018, Jan). How Violent Media Affects Young People. TMJ4 News. ❖ Chomsky, Noam. (1992). Manufacturing Consent. YouTube & Vimeo This documentary has been made into several shorter focused videos that run between 5 min – the original 2-hour documentary. They are very impactful for students and often have not been seen before. Particular favorites include: • The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine (Al Jazeera English on YouTube) (5 min) • Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent Excerpts (Chomsky’s Philosophy on YouTube) (9 min) ❖ Media Education Foundation (Producer). bell hooks: Cultural Criticism & Transformation.

(YouTube and Media Education Foundation) ❖ Orlowski, J. (2020). The Social Dilemma. Netflix.

WEBSITE SUGGESTIONS ❖ http://www.mediaed.org The Media Education Foundation is a source of a number of the Video Suggestions in this Instructor’s Manual. If your school has a subscription to Kanopy, 100’s of educational documentaries are available for class review.

Categories of documentaries include: Gender & Culture, Race & Representation, Commercialism & Corporate Power, etc.

The website also provides many helpful resources for instructors and students, including a variety of handouts and articles, including class activities related to media ownership, how to be a critical media viewer, tactics of the advertising industry, media violence, and war-based video games. ❖ http://camy.org In addition to its Marketing Gallery of hundreds of alcohol advertisements, the website for the Center for Alcohol Marketing and Youth includes a wide range of research reports and fact sheets. Topics include alcohol marketing to ethnic minority youth, brand recognition and its effects on youth alcohol consumption, the prevalence of alcohol advertising in youth media, and more.

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❖ http://www.international.gc.ca/international/index.aspx?lang=eng Search to find the page “Cybercrime.” This federal government website describes national and international initiatives to combat cybercrime. ❖ https://www.missingpersonsresearchhub.com This is a Canadian national networking forum and research hub focused on Missing Persons.

It is a way of centralizing stakeholders with the hope of creating evidence-based policy and practice. ❖ https://www.commonsensemedia.org/ This site is set up to provide parents, educators and ‘advocates’ with information about all forms of media based on a set of criteria about content and is appropriate nature for younger people. It is interesting to review what the categories are and why we feel certain content is more damaging than others.

NEWS ARTICLE SUGGESTIONS ❖ Meenakshi Sudagopan, S. (2019). Feedback Loops and Echo Chambers: How Algorithms Amplify Viewpoints. The Conversation: Canada.

More and more people are retrieving information about the world online. We are increasingly aware of the algorithms playing in the background and the impact they have on sorting us into echo chambers where we only receive partial and biased knowledge. Students need to be aware of this and the impact it has. ❖ Meehan, M. (2019). Data Privacy Will Be the Most Important Issue in the Next Decade.

Forbes.

There are some that argue that the most valuable thing for sale now is us. The use of data by both criminal groups and powerful moral entrepreneurs are something for students to think about and discuss. ❖ McMurtrie, B. (2021). Teaching: Tackling Disinformation in the Classroom. The Chronical of Higher Education.

This article is intended more for instructors than students. It is a relevant topic to the experience of teaching in today’s world. Most students learn from online sources, social media and those around them. For that reason, with the rise of ‘fake news’ our job is that much more challenging. This article provides resources and suggestions on how to handle disinformation and support our students with their media literacy. ❖ Wiliams, Z. (2019). Alcopops are back – but why are they being sold as a wellness trend?

The Guardian.

This article connects directly into the discussion around advertising and youth drinking.

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APPLY WHAT YOU KNOW 1. COVID and the resulting lockdowns have led to constant shifts in social, political and economic patterns throughout 2020 and into 2021. Reviewing articles or research looking at changing media habits, uses, impacts and also deviance that have resulted, would offer many options for students to apply what they are learning to the world.

• Statistics Canada released a review Oct 14, 2020 titled “Canadians spend more money and time online during pandemic and over two-fifths report a cyber incident”. Consider this and discuss how the social context of influences our discussions on media in relation to deviance.

• McLaughlin, R. & Currie, E. (2020, Oct). Cybercrime Booming During Pandemichttps://bc.ctvnews.ca/cybercrime-booming-during-the-pandemic-1.5154896.

CTV News: Vancouver.

• Crawford, B. (2021, Jan). How pandemic screen time is taking a toll on young people’s mental health. Ottawa Citizen.

• The rise of #BlackLivesMatter protests throughout the world after the death of George Floyd in the US has been connected to the use of social media. Whether it is related to the pandemic could be debated, but studying the resulting discourse and backlash groups (Capitol Riots in DC, Jan 6, 2021) would be a really interesting class discussion.

• Maqbool, A. (2020, July). Black Lives Matter: From Social Media Post to Global Movement. BBC. Specific Questions they Could Consider: a. How does social context (time, place, current events, available technology) influence our behaviours and patterns? b. What can we learn by studying the patterns of cybercrime during a pandemic? How has crime shifted to respond to the changing social experience? c. Why did some of the events of 2020-2021 happen the way that they did? Was the timing coincidence? What role did media play? d. Can you make predictions on the future of media and its influence on deviance?

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Chapter 5: “Deviant” and “Normal” Sexuality LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students should be able to: 5.1 Contrast the sexual cultures of Indigenous societies with those of Settler and colonial societies and explain the role that regulating Indigenous Peoples’ sexualities has played in the larger project of colonization.

5.2 Describe how deviant sexuality was defined and regulated from the seventeenth century through the twentieth century, and explain how the changing sexual cultures reinforced class, gender, and racial hierarchies of the times.

5.3 Explain how consent, nature of the partner, and nature of the act serve as criteria by which we judge deviant and normal sexuality.

5.4 Outline the nature of the deviance dance surrounding the issues of exotic dancing, pornography, and prostitution.

LECTURE OUTLINE 1. The complexity of sexuality in human societies points to the different lenses through which sexuality can be viewed—biological and sociological. a. Objective deviance specialists refer to cultural and historical variations in the norms used as the standard against which deviance is judged, while subjective deviance specialists refer to processes of social construction. Social processes determine who is socially typed as deviant through the processes of description (placed in a category because of their sexuality), evaluation (judged because of the category into which they have been placed), and prescription (made subject to measures of regulation) or social control). b. Elite discourses of sexuality govern the sexual culture of any society at any given time in history, influencing sexual identities and practices, as well as people’s reactions to those identities and practices. The elite discourses of Canadian society have undergone a long evolution, beginning with the sexual cultures of Indigenous cultures prior to and after colonization, and extending into the sexual culture of the 21st century.

2. The socially constructed nature of sexuality has been the revealed by the cross- cultural work of anthropologists (e.g. Herdt’s classic study on ritualized homosexuality in Sambian society) and classicists (e.g. Arkin’s research on the power of aristocratic men in the sexual culture of Athens in the 5th century BC).

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3. Traditional Indigenous cultures of North America are extremely diverse, as are sexual cultures (e.g. dominant moral codes governing premarital and extramarital sex). Sex, gender and sexuality differ between the many Indigenous cultures that lived throughout North America. However, amidst that diversity there were some commonalities, especially in contrast to the sexual cultures of the colonizing Europeans. a. Many Indigenous cultures perceived sexuality as an integral part of a holistic view of life—physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual, were all part of a healthy life.

Sexuality was considered a gift from the Creator, rather than as a necessary “sin” (which was the dominant view of the colonizing European cultures at the time). b. Many Indigenous cultures traditionally recognized more than two sexes and genders (e.g. nadleeh, berdache), incorporating an acceptance of diverse sexualities. Non-binary gender was common, accepted and in many cases, celebrated as a form of spiritual power. c. It is important to note that there was considerable variation across Indigenous cultures, they cannot be generalized. In some women were encouraged to engage in premarital or extramarital sex, where in others women’s actions were more controlled.

4. As white settlers and the colonial governments gained power, the dominant moral code and corresponding social controls of Christian religious morality spread. Heteronormative, patriarchal and highly conservative, sex shifted to being something exclusive to procreation and things like pleasure (especially for women) were linked to notions of sin. Sexuality became shamed and controlled to assure paternity. Same-sex activities were informally and formally sanctioned by various powerful groups (government, church, science). a. During the early years of colonization, Indigenous women were frequently les femmes du pays for male settlers. However, as colonization progressed, Indigenous sexuality was increasingly defined as “deviant” and controlled through religion and law. b. Despite the labels, relationships between settler’s and Indigenous people’s continued in many forms, such as in the “dance halls” and gold rush towns along the coast of British Columbia. Some of these were consensual, many were not. c. The sexual culture of the time was intertwined with hierarchies of gender, race, and class. Colonial discourses of sexuality and race frequently overlapped, such that “racial degeneracy and sexual pathology” were often intertwined (Balestrery, 2012, p.647).

Controls imposed on sexuality, marriage, kinship were a key part of subordinating Indigenous cultures more generally.

• Owners of Black and Indigenous slaves were present into the 19th century, and the practice of slavery was again intertwined with control of sexuality. Slave owners determined who was permitted to mate with whom and when, for the purposes of reproduction. The female slaves were expected to be available for male members of the owner’s family.

• Feminists point out that controlling gender and sexuality was central to maintaining social order. d. Significant social changes occurred throughout North America from the late 18th century through the 19th century, changes that influenced sexual culture and created a dominant sexual meaning of intimacy within marriage. e. Urbanization and wage labour provided individuals with greater freedom from kinship and community surveillance. f. Religious shifts transferred responsibility for salvation from the church and state onto

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the individual. g. “Love” marriages began to replace “arranged” marriages. h. Women increasingly controlled sexuality to reduce the frequency of pregnancy and its associated dangers. The medical profession provided additional resources, via contraception. i. The idea of self-control permeated medical and economic discourses and influenced sexual culture as well. j. The culture industry gained a societal presence, as both a regulator of sexual deviance (e.g. didactic poems and stories) as well as a component of sexual deviance (e.g. pornography). k. The social purity movement (or sex hygiene movement) emerged in Canada, the Northeastern United States, and Britain as a regulator of prostitution, masturbation, alcohol consumption, and immorality. l. Hierarchies of race, class, and gender continued to influence sexual culture. Members of the lower-class were associated with immorality and made subject to social control, the sexuality of black and Chinese men was defined as “dangerous” to white women to society and therefore sexuality of women and men were regulated in different ways. m. However, as moral entrepreneurs identified and drew attention to sexual “diseases” (e.g., sodomy, homosexuality), the sex industry, and female sexual exploitation, the state’s role in controlling sexual deviance and regulating morality grew once again.

5. By the early 20th century, the dominant meaning of sexuality had become personal happiness, independent of marriage. Yet, sexuality continues to be controlled in many ways both formally (laws) and informally (public reaction).

6. The sexual cultures of Canada and the United States are characterized by considerably more freedom than in the past. The sex industry and culture more broadly have normalized sexuality in many ways. Yet, that freedom is not unlimited. “Deviance” continues to be socially constructed within our contemporary sexual cultures.

7. The criteria for determining sexual deviance today is diverse. a. The issue of consent is central to definitions of sexual assault, age-of-consent laws, the use of “date rape” drugs, and debates over the abuse of power in the formation of sexual relationships. Is “consent” an attitude? Or, is it a behaviour?

• Debates over consent are multifaceted. At what age is someone capable of giving sexual consent? Are males capable of giving consent at an earlier age than females? Is it possible for someone to give consent to an individual that is in a position of power or authority? What about under the influence of a substance?

• The issue of consent, and its influence on sexual culture, varies across cultures and over time. While law tries to make it concrete (it is either there or it is not), people’s understanding of consent is more complex. b. The nature of the sexual partner is another of the criteria used to evaluation “deviant” and “normal’ sexuality. At formal levels, specific persons may be prohibited as sexual partners by the law (e.g. “incest” or “bestiality”) or by the policies of certain organizations (e.g. employers). Informally, sexual relationships between people may be perceived as “inappropriate” (e.g. professor/graduate student).

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c. There have been substantial changes in the acceptance of same-sex partners. These changes were set in motion by the Stonewall Inn riots in Greenwich Village in 1969 and carried on by efforts by the LGBT2QIA+ movement. However, stigmatization of samesex relationships continued during these changes (e.g. the federal government’s attempt to purge homosexuals from public service); in contemporary Canadian society, LGBT2QIA+ youth continue to face stigmatization by peers (e.g. cyberbullying).

• Globally many countries continue to formally and informally sanction LGBTQ2IA+ people. The US. For example, only legalized marriage in 2015, and continues to see several states in debates on rights and access to equitable treatment (health care), participation (sports), protection (job security). d. The nature of the sexual act is considered another criterion. Certain sexual acts are perceived as “normal”, while other acts are considered “deviant”. This is culturally and historically specific. We have historically controlled acts like masturbation. Today it is seen as more acceptable, though arguably there are still heteronormative, patriarchal rules around who and what is allowed of us.

8. The “deviance dance” consists of many differing points of view, debates, and controversies regarding sexuality. In ancient Athens, and throughout Canadian and American history, there have been groups of people that opposed the dominant moral codes governing sexuality in their respective societies. In contemporary society, we can see many of these debates when considering the sex trade (i.e. exotic dancing; pornography; prostitution).

9. The question of whether exotic dancers are victims of violence in a patriarchal society, or agents of choice has been a cornerstone for debate. There is ongoing debate of whether exotic dancers (primarily women) are being exploited, exercising agency, or are empowered through sexuality. a. Some analyze patterns of interaction and power. Examining identity, as well as the structures of power. For example, analyzing the relationship between dancers and their customers, or the difference in the experience for male dancers (men who dance for women – MDW), as compared to female dancers (Women who dance for men – WDM) b. There are competing interests between stakeholders, capitalism, cultural ideals of gender, sexuality and beauty. c. The McDonaldization of society is evident, through efficiency (e.g. interacting with as many customers as possible), predictability (e.g. the physical appearance of dancers), control (e.g. through plastic surgery or body makeup), and calculability (e.g. length and timing of songs).

10. In contemporary North America, the “deviance dance” is also evident with the issue of pornography, from its very definition to questions of its effects. Is it harmful? Should it be controlled? If so, how? a. Functional definitions of pornography emphasize individual arousal— pornography anything used by an individual for the purposes of sexual arousal (Goode, 2019), which has a wide range of potential examples . Anything from erotic videos to Victoria’s Secret catalogues. b. Genre definitions created with the intent to produce sexual arousal (e.g. Playboy? romance novels?).

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c. Labelling definitions emphasize community standards of what is “obscene” (e.g.

Canada’s obscenity laws). d. Legal definition of child pornography is much clearer. Section 163 of the Criminal Code – any representation of someone under the age of 18 engaged in explicit sexual activity or any representation of someone under the age of 18. While it is much clearer, it too has been subject to social and legal debate.

11. Debate around whether pornography is harmful only if it has children is ongoing. Does pornography encourage sexual violence? Is it connected to higher rates of mental illness (depression, anxiety, addiction)? Does it influence social attitudes about women, or relationships? Is it immoral? a. Recent research on the possible effects of pornography consumption on audiences (which is a more objectivist research interest) tends to focus on adolescents and young adults.

Research focusing on sexual attitudes, unrealistic ideas about sex, and sexual behaviours has been contradictory. Research is more consistent regarding (a) an association between consumption of violent pornography and sexually-aggressive behaviours, and (b) the effects of consumption on adolescents’ self-concept and self-esteem, especially through acts of, and use of pictures gathered during, acts of sexting (email or instant message nude or partially nude photos of themselves, or share someone else’s photos). b. Recent research that comes from the more subjective end of the objective- subjective analyzes the understandings and meanings of pornography in the lives of young adults.

This research reveals an internalized “deviance dance”. Pornography is normalized and considered acceptable, yet there is an ambivalence about it as well; for instance, young adults acknowledge that real relationships are better, and that “love” is missing from the pornographic equation.

12. The “deviance dance” is also evident in debates over prostitution. The past 200 years have been characterized by changing discourses of prostitution—from moral discourses (of both the prostitute and the male customer), to discourses of public health, to victimization discourses, and most recently, discourses that emphasize worker rights (as reflected in recent court decisions regarding brothels). a. Academic discourses are debated as well. Some scholars are critical of the oppression paradigm that has governed research on prostitution, for ignoring women’s voices and treating all experiences as the same; instead, a polymorphous paradigm is called for, acknowledging the specific, situated experiences of different groups of sex workers. b. Discourses have shifted to also include a focus on human rights in policies and law. In Canada, prostitution has been decriminalized, it is not illegal (2014). The purchasing or profiting off sex (pimping) remains illegal. This change was made to provide sex workers to seek help when needed without the fear of formal sanction. However, some argue that this has placed sex workers into unsafe working conditions. c. Some scholars propose that research and discourse around prostitution or sex work more generally requires an intersectional lens. The harms caused by prostitution disproportionality affect women, who are poor, members of racialized groups or Indigenous (Pocock, 2020). Some women are sexualized, and others are seen as victims needing protection. d. Others argue that framing Indigenous or racialized sex workers as victims is problematic.

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TEACHING SUGGESTIONS FOR ACTIVE LEARNING 1. The Ask Yourself questions or Exercise Your Mind boxes located throughout the chapter can be used as discussion points in class, or as assignments.

2. Divide students into groups and have them analyze the gendered, racial, and class aspects of sexual culture that are contained in men’s and women’s magazines. Assign each group either a men’s (e.g. Maxim) or women’s magazine (e.g. Cosmopolitan). Readership of these specific magazines is dominated by men and women ages 18-30, so their contributions to sexual culture are significant for many students, and for the broader society. Have students report back on the following ideas: a. Describe the sexual culture within the magazine (i.e. acceptable and unacceptable partners, acts, etc.). b. How are men and women portrayed within the context of sexual culture? c. How are race and ethnicity portrayed within the context of sexual culture? Which racial and ethnic groups are represented in a sexual way? Which racial and ethnic groups are excluded from representation in a sexual way? What does this tell us about race and Canadian sexual culture? d. How is socioeconomic class represented within the context of sexual culture?

3. Provide students with the sections of the Criminal Code that address various sexual offenses.

Have students try to identify common themes that underlie the criminalization of the various behaviours. Instructors may want to guide discussion based on objective and subjective characteristics of deviance addressed in Chapter 1 (e.g. statistical rarity; harm; negative societal reaction; normative violation; power).

4. Have the students contact school’s student services office and ask for information about the extent of sexual offence/violence on the campus. Do students report such crimes? What policies and procedures are in place to respond to sexual offences?

5. The video Open Secrets (see reference under “Video Suggestions”) addresses the persecution of homosexual men in the Canadian military from the 1940s through the 1960s, including their experiences of military tribunals and dishonourable discharge. After watching the video, class discussion can address how society has changed since that time, but also the ways in which homosexuality continues to be socially typed as “deviant” in Canadian society.

6. Many students today do not fully understand the history and development of the LGBTQ2IA+ movement, why it was and continues to be a needed social conversation. a. Encourage students to review resources about Stonewall, what it was all about and how the LGBTQ2IA+ movement has progressed over time. The video Stonewall Forever (see reference under Video suggestions) is approximately 20 minutes as an option. b. Have students research current experiences of both formal and informal controls and sanctions both in Canada and around the world. c. Have them think about the moral entrepreneurs involved, the ways labels are used and created, and consider the ideologies and values at the core. d. This will help many understand why the deviance dance continues.

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VIDEO SUGGESTIONS ❖ Torrealba, J. (Director), Bochner, S., & Wong, G. (Producers) (2003). Open Secrets. National Film Board of Canada. ❖ Palmer, M. (Director), LeGuerrier, R. (Producer), & Hogan, T. M. (Producer). (2012). Sext Up Kids: How Children are Becoming Hypersexualized. Media Education Foundation. ❖ Wagoner, B. (Director). (2010). After Porn Ends. Oxymoron Entertainment and Mallick Media. ❖ Haber, R. (2019). Stonewall Forever – A Documentary about the Past, Present and Future of Pride. YouTube. ❖ National Post. (Producer). (2018). Tackling the Stigma Surrounding Disability and Sexuality.

YouTube.

WEBSITE SUGGESTIONS ❖ http://sieccan.org/sexual-health-education The website of the Sexual Information and Education Council of Canada provides access to information and research about sex education, sexual activity, and sexually transmitted diseases, especially in relation to Canadian adolescents and young adults. It also provides several links to reputable national and international Internet sites about sexuality. SIECCAN publishes The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, and a number of articles from that journal are available on this site as well. ❖ http://pflagcanada.ca/ The website of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays provides information about homosexuality and bisexuality, resources for support, updates on current issues, and videos featuring individuals who are LGBT (as well as parents and children of people who are LGBT). ❖ https://earhustle .com This is a website for the Podcast Ear Hustle. This podcast is created and produced by inmates from win San Quentin State Prison, California. It started in 2017 and is now on its sixth season. There are several episodes that relate to this chapter as well as several others. It is powerful, but raw. The language and discussions are unfiltered. If assigned, it is advised that students are given proper trigger warnings and that they are aware that the content can be read as a transcript rather than listening to the Podcast itself.

Some episodes that relate to sexuality: • Season 1: Episode 6 – The Boom Boom Room (intimacy in prison) • Season 2: Episode 13 – Dirty Water (sex trafficking, restorative justice) • Season 2: Episode 18 - Down Low (LGBTQ in prison)

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• •

Season 3: Episode 24 – The Big No No (falling in love with staff / volunteer) Season 4: Episode 30 – I Want the Fairy Tale (dating when you get out)

❖ https://londonantihumantrafficking.ca/ The London Anti-Human Trafficking Committee (LAHT) is one of many organizations in Canada trying to prevent or end human trafficking. Given that sexual trafficking is the number one form of trafficking in Canada, this relates directly into the discussion around sex work. This website provides examples of important conversations, as well as links to information and resources (including other groups to learn from). ❖ https://egale.ca/ A website dedicated to improving the lives of LGBTQI2S people in Canada. This resource focuses on issues, policies, inspiring change and promoting human rights. It is a hub for research, information and networking.

NEWS ARTICLE SUGGESTIONS ❖ Lansky, S. (2021). T.J. Osborne is Ready to Tell His Story. TIME. This news article outlines the ‘coming out’ story of country singer T.J. Osborne of Brothers Osborne. It offers connections to conversations around managing identity, dominant heteronormative culture (in particular in country music) and social reaction. ❖ Gray, G., & Coovadia, H. (2015). Explainer: Tackling the Stigma and Myths Around Sexuality. The Conversation: Canada.

This article discusses the issues experienced to LGBTQ2IA+ in Africa. It addresses a persistent anti-homosexual sentiment (formal and informal) found across the continent. ❖ Mogilevsky, M. (2016). 10 Things Sex Positivity is Not. Everyday Feminism.

This article thinks through debates and discussion around the idea of ‘sex positive’, which is a movement against shaming people and their sexuality.

APPLY WHAT YOU KNOW 1. The debate about any form of sex work (prostitution, dancing, pornography, escort services, sugar babies, etc.) as part of the sex industry is ongoing and unlikely to be resolved. People working professionally with sex workers and those researching academically sex work do not agree with one another on the issues or the solutions. Hearing and considering a variety of positions is an important exercise for our students who are used to seeking resolvable solutions. However, this is a ‘wicked problem’. It ties to many of the discussions from this chapter, as well as others. This exercise could be a class discussion, a debate, a position paper, or turned into some other form of assignment. Guest speakers can be an incredibly powerful addition if you can arrange that. There is a lot of depth here to work with and students really enjoy it!

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Have students review some / all of these resources: • http://www.pivotlegal.org/sex_workers_rights A non-profit group advocating for the rights of sex work in Canada • https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/08/07/why-sex-work-should-be-decriminalized A human rights position arguing that sex work should be decriminalized • https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/03/27/lies-damned-lies-andsex-work-statistics/ An opinion article from the perspective of a former sex worker on research and data around sex work • https://nordicmodelnow.org/2020/03/12/prostitution-is-not-a-job-and-never-will-beheres-why/ This article written by a survivor of prostitution advocates against prostitution as a job • https://toronto.citynews.ca/2019/11/10/sex-doll-brothel-relaunches-in-mississauga-withnewowner/#:~:text=A%20controversial%20%E2%80%9Csex%20doll%20brothel,is%20mad e%20just%20for%20you.%E2%80%9D This article describes a Sex Doll brothel that has opened in Toronto and the various social reactions and social controls happening around its existence.

Questions Students Can Consider: a. If we are more accepting of premarital and casual sex ... is our issue with the sex industry about sex? ... or money for sex? b. Is the opportunity to work in the sex industry liberating or a form of female exploitation?

Is it a choice? c. In terms of prostitution or sex work more generally: Is it better to decriminalize?

Legalize? Criminalize? d. If an aspect of sex work is criminal: Do, we arrest the sex worker or the john? e. If our approach is to decriminalize: What does this say about our views on morality and sexuality? f. If we argue to legalize it? Does this make it ‘safer’? What are the potential consequences? g. Which one is safer? For society? For the workers? For the buyers? h. What are some different approaches to laws seen around the world? What values and norms are these approaches based on? i. If you were going to create a research study, what would you want to study? How would you design it and why?

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Chapter 6: Youth “At Risk” and “As a Risk” LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students should be able to: 6.1 Contrast the views of youth “at risk” and “as a risk,” and explain how cyberbullying impacts youth.

6.2 Describe the extent and patterns of use of tobacco/e-cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol among youth, as well as how their usage is socially controlled.

6.3 Compare popular images of youth crime with statistics on the nature and prevalence of youth crime, and explain why a gap exists between the perceptions and the realities.

6.4 Describe theoretical and empirical research on youth crime and gang involvement.

6.5 Explain how gangs and youth crime are socially controlled.

6.6 Describe how all teenagers are perceived as deviant in society, and explain the nature of the generation gap in the past, present, and future

LECTURE OUTLINE 1. Youth refers to a specific stage in life, a transitional time in life between childhood and maturity; one is no longer a “child,” but is not yet an “adult.” However, how this stage is operationalized varies across cultures, over time, and even across contexts within a culture at a specific point in time; in other words, the concept of “youth” is socially constructed. a. Youth conform to each other, which places them in opposition collectively to be different to the rest of society. b. All youth are determined to be “at risk” in one way or another. They either have the potential to be a threat to themselves or to society. c. Various definitions of the age of ‘youth’ exist. For example, the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) defines youth as 12-17, whereas the United Nations and World Health Organization focus on ages 15-24. d. Some see youth as a status, a stage, or a process.

2. Youth regularly experience preventative social control because they are “at risk”. a. Common concerns about risky behaviours such as misuse of substances (alcohol, drugs), premature sexual activity, self-harm. b. Adults also worry about victimization through cyberbullying or online predators.

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3. Substance use is common in our culture. Smoking, vaping, social drinking, and now cannabis are found regularly in everyday life. a. Social controls to regulate these are found everywhere for youth. School policies, social warnings, education programs, parent monitoring. b. The most common in youth grades 7-12 were alcohol, e-cigarettes, cannabis. c. Opioid pain relievers are a continuing problem. d. Cigarettes are on decline with youth (fewer than 1% smoke daily), however e-cigarettes are an emergent trend.

4. The implementation of laws and targeted social messaging have been seen to have a direct impact on cigarette use in particular. a. Laws prohibiting the sale of tobacco under the age of 18. b. Smoke free public spaces, for example smoke free campuses. c. Health promotion strategies to help people quit smoking. d. Retroactive social controls on the tobacco industry – collective action lawsuits; censorship of advertising.

5. Product placement and substance use in movies are shown to have an impact on youth attitudes and behaviour. a. Smoking continues in movies, especially those coming from countries that do not have the same controls placed on advertising to youth. b. WHO advocates for radical control measures to stop youth from starting smoking.

Research shows that adults who smoke generally started before the age of 18.

6. E-cigarette (vaping) has had a rapid increase. a. Initially considered ‘safer’ – created to help adults stop smoking. b. 12% by grade 9 have tried vaping, by grade 12 this rises to 47%. c. Motivations include being involved in the new trend, it becomes a hobby, public spectacle, substituting this for their smoking habit. d. Governments have been criticized for slow implementation of official legislation to control vaping (e.g. banning flavours). e. Public health has been criticized for claiming it was safer than smoking.

7. Drug use can refer to any substance other than food that has psychoactive properties (mood or cognition). It can refer to both illegal substances, as well as legal substances (cannabis). a. Cannabis is the most commonly used drug by Canadian youth and adults. It is most widely used by people ages 20-24. It was legalized in 2018 in Canada. Research on whether use increased after legalization shows that use among adults increased by 2%, there was no change for 18-24, and 15-17-year-old actually decreased by 10%. b. Illegal drug use is much less common. The most common illegal drugs are hallucinogens and synthetic cannabinoids. c. Youth are much more likely to abuse prescription drugs or over-the counter medication than they are to use illicit drugs.

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8. The factors affecting youth drug use are multidimensional. a. Individual factors – genetic, environmental predisposition, degree of personal competence (extent to which they feel in control of their life and optimistic about the future), trauma, mental health, gang involvement. b. Community factors – norms about substance use, prevalence of crime, community disorganization, economic conditions, nature of peers. c. Family – parenting style, parent-child emotional attachment, abuse or neglect, family history of substance abuse. d. School – academic success, reading skills, problem-solving ability, participation in extracurriculars, feeling of belonging. = e. Effective programs are comprehensive, targeting factors at all levels. They integrate the youth’s perceptions and realistically take their lifestyle into consideration.

9. Alcohol is a normative behaviour in Canadian youth. More than 40% from grade 7-12 have consumed alcohol within the previous year. The average age of first use is 13.4 years old. a. 84% of youth aged 20-24 have consumed alcohol in the last year. b. Almost 40% of high school students and more 20-24 have engaged in ‘high-risk’ drinking (5+ drinks on a single occasion).

10. The alcohol industry has been criticized for facilitating and/or promoting drinking by specifically targeting younger groups. Flavoured, low sugar, etc. drinks – often with hard liquor (ex. vodka). Some supersized, with caffeine.

11. Binge Drinking (5 drinks for males; 4 drinks for females) is a common focus for university students in particular. The unique nature, culture and pattern of university life has led to social control measures to target binge drinking specifically. a. Beginning university is beginning an ‘apprenticeship in drinking’. b. 35-40% of university students are binge drinkers (have engaged in binge drinking in the past few weeks) c. Drink more than same age peers who are not at university d. A way to ‘party and make friends’; a transition between work and the weekend; to relieve stress; to relax or loosen up e. The proportion of binge-drinking has been consistent over decades, but some patterns have changed. The proportion of abstainers (non-drinkers) has increased, but so has the proportion that drink more. Binge-drinking has also increasingly moved off campus. f. Binge drinking does have some negative consequences for users (e.g. missing classes), their peers (e.g. disrupted studying), and the larger community (e.g. automobile accidents), but is not associated with problem drinking later in life. g. Postsecondary institutions have implemented a wide range of preventative and retroactive social control efforts. Students support such effort if they are created in conjunction with student input. But regardless of control efforts that have been implemented, the proportion of binge drinkers remains unchanged. h. Some researchers suggest that there is a prevention paradox, in that most control efforts are targeted at individual “heavy drinkers”, but most of the harms are being caused by the larger population of “low” or “moderate” drinkers.

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i. The only effective means of control may be changes to regulatory environments, that is, changes in the university environment and the larger societal environment (a population prevention approach). Students advocate that you cannot demonize alcohol consumption, but rather normalize it and then focus on reducing harm. Provide alternate ways to de-stress, socialize, etc.).

12. There are considerable differences between perceptions of youth crime and patterns of youth crime. a. While crime data shows that Canada’s crime rate increased from 1962 to 1991, both adult and youth crime have decreased steadily to 2018, the lowest crime rate since the mid-70’s (Moreau, 2019). b. The changes are consistent when comparing other countries as well. It is likely a combination of social factors: changes in police practices, aging populations, legislative changes, evolving attitudes, patterns in substance use, etc. c. The crimes most frequently committed by youth are level 1 assault, theft of $5000 or under, mischief (Moreau, 2019). Although youth crime is not of the magnitude suggested by public perceptions, it is still a serious issue. Youth are overrepresented in the criminal justice system. Those aged 12 to 17 are more likely to be accused of crimes compared to people ages 25 and over. If we include young adults ages 18 to 24 (who are not governed by youth justice legislation but who are considered “youth” based on other definitions), the problem is magnified. Young adults ages 18 to 24 have the highest crime rate overall, and for every category of crime other than property crimes (Moreau, 2019).

13. Moral panics contribute to the gap between perceptions and realities of youth crime in Canadian society today. The concept of moral panic originally developed by Stanley Cohen, refers to exaggerated and sensationalized concerns of a specific phenomenon. Goode and Ben-Yehuda (1994) list five elements of a moral panic: heightened concern; hostility toward the offending group; a certain level of consensus that there is a real threat; disproportionality; and volatility. a. Moral panics are constructed within the media, wherein youth crime is overrepresented, portrayed as a new problem for society, and linked to certain ethnic groups, class and gender.

14. Concerns about youth crime, and about crime more generally, have led to an abundance of research on the causes of youth crime. Research has been both theoretical and empirical. a. Many of the positivist theories presented in Chapter 2 were originally created as theories of youth criminality in particular—differential association theory, social control theories, the theory of status frustration, and more. b. Empirical research has analyzed the influence of intelligence and school performance, however most empirical research focuses on parents and peers. c. Peer influence has been shown to have a superficial, as some youth are more or less likely to become involved with criminally active peers to begin with. d. School and family related factors appear especially important. Youth who have positive experiences at school, are actively involved, feel close to people at school, are less likely to engage in criminal activity. The same is true for family relationships. The parent-child relationship is especially important.

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e. Lewis (2017) argues that youth criminality is ultimately the result of “failing to matter” (p. 1318). Mattering refers to “the perception that to some degree and in any of a variety of ways, we are a significant part of the world around us” (p. 1319). Youth who feel they do not matter are more likely to engage in risk taking or to gain attention, even if it is negative.

15. Youth gangs have become a dominant theme within the US news media, where they are portrayed as a new, growing, and out of control problem for society. Canadian research is comparatively sparse, in fact, the Canadian research on youth gangs is currently not available, primarily as a result of a lack of national data and youth not being willing to reveal gang membership. a. there is a greater risk of gang involvement among youth who experience high levels of marginalization (e.g., street-involved youth; Indigenous youth) (Dunbar, 2017; Greenberg et al., 2016; MacLaurin & Worthington, 2016).

16. Two broad streams of research on youth gangs include a focus on causation or motivation (why gangs form, why youth join, why gangs engage in certain activities) and the second stream focuses on the social construction of ‘the gang problem’ (Why moral panics about gangs? What is a gang?)

17. The HOW and WHY of Gangs. Young people are more likely to be involved with street gangs than organized crime gangs, and they are likely to have been criminally active even before joining a gang. Membership in gangs is fluid, and typically includes a range of ages (although most gang members tend to be under the age of 30) and diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds (Totten, 2016). However, there is a greater risk of gang involvement among youth who experience high levels of marginalization.

18. Why do youth join gangs? a. The same objective / positivist theories that address youth crime are also applied to youth gang activity. For example, strain theory, differential opportunity theory, and the theory of status frustration suggest that gangs will emerge in economically disadvantaged areas or among lower-class youth. Differential opportunity theory proposes that the nature of the illegitimate opportunities present in the community determines the nature of gang behaviour. b. Research on gangs also come from more subjective theoretical orientations. Miller (2019) discusses gang membership as a meaning-making activity. c. Jankowski’s (1991) ethnographic research suggests that youth join gangs for rational reasons that are in their best interests—material incentives; recreation; a place of refuge and camouflage; physical protection; a time to resist; and a commitment to the community. d. Empirical research has found that a combination of family (e.g. abuse; parenting style), personal (e.g. grades; motivation), community (e.g. cultural and recreational resources), and school (e.g. violence; funding) indicators influence gang involvement.

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19. The construction of the “gang problem”: There is no single definition of gang, though there are some commonly accepted criteria. Several people, organized in a leadership structure, with a group identity, and who claim a specific geographic space. a. What is distinct about a ‘gang’ as compared to other youth groups? b. How are gangs and university fraternities the same / different?

20. Just as with images of youth crime more generally, public images of gangs surpass their actual existence. Not only are stories about gangs found on television news and in newspapers, they can also be easily found in the fictional media—on television crime dramas, in movies, and in the glamourized images of gangs within some rap and hip hop music lyrics and videos (Tanner, 2015). The involvement of certain ethnic and age groups is a significant component of public images of gangs. In other words, stories about gangs frequently include references to specific racial or ethnic groups. Racial and ethnic stereotyping leads to processes such as racial profiling and creates misunderstanding, labelling, mistrust, and hostility between groups.

21. Certain groups may benefit from the creation of a moral panic about street gangs. By presenting sensationalistic and fear-provoking stories, the media draws an audience and thereby increases profit. Some politicians engage in fear mongering to obtain more votes.

Interest groups and community agencies who want legislation strengthened or who provide social programs may receive more funding by exaggerating the nature of the problem. Law enforcement agencies may also benefit in some communities by receiving more funding to hire more officers or create specialized gang units. Even gangs themselves may benefit from this moral panic, which provides them with free publicity and may thereby increase their membership and power in the community. Youth who are currently not involved in gangs may form new gangs to protect themselves from the perceived threat.

22. Youth crime and gangs are both socially controlled at multiple levels (formal, informal, retroactive, preventative) and in multiple locations (schools, families, communities, the criminal justice system). a. Gang awareness programs to teach about the dangers and consequences of gang membership focus on prevention. Or programs that develop healthy and positive life skills. b. Community agencies in gang-ridden neighbourhoods create preventative and retroactive programs. Helping members leave gangs, educational upgrading, job training, tattoo removal, and counselling. c. Informal controls occur in everyday social interactions. Parenting (socialization, style, communication); community involvement d. The Comprehensive Gang Model outlines important strategies to help mobilize a community to create positive and effective interactions and programs to suppress gang activity and promote health youth communities. e. The control of youth crime within the Canadian justice system has changed over the last century, from the Juvenile Delinquents act (with its child welfare focus based on the concept of parens patriae) to the Young Offenders Act (with its criminal justice focus), and most recently to the multifaceted Youth Criminal Justice Act. f. Oudshoorn (2015) points out that the youth justice system continues to fall short of

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meaningful change. This is because it fails to sufficiently address youth trauma, which plays a key role in youth crime (Vitopoulos et al., 2019). Trauma can be either individual or collective in nature. If one considers trauma to be a key source of youth crime, then the youth justice system must provide the resources necessary to heal that trauma.

23. Adolescence itself is socially typed as an inherently deviant time in the life cycle, creating a generation gap between youth and adults. A “generation gap” is seen to exist regardless of who the youth and adults are; that is, the “youth” of the 1950s-generation gap, are now the “adults” in the 21st century generation gap. a. At the turn of the 20th century, G. Stanley Hall conceptualized adolescents as being amid the transition from “beastlike” to “humanlike”, at a time in life characterized by sturm und drang (i.e. storm and stress). b. The emergence of the “teenager” in the 1950s reinforced the social typing of youth as deviant, as did research showing the “most important things” to high school students were popularity (for girls) and sports (for boys). c. Critics of the notion of a “generation gap” pointed out that adolescent interests were set in motion by the adult world, and had their equivalents in the adult world. From early childhood, children are taught to make friends (“share your toys, or the other kids won’t like you anymore”) and are shown the importance of sports (e.g. in the behaviour of parental spectators at children’s sports activities). d. The adult world is also characterized by peer pressure (e.g. keeping up with the Joneses) and the importance of sports (e.g. professional athletes earning millions of dollars per year). e. Research has found that most parents like their teenagers, most teenagers like their parents, and most parent-teen groupings can get along quite well. Relationships between parent and adolescents are stronger in the 21st century than ever before. In a 30 year study, Bibby concluded that 67% of teenagers had positive interactions and were influenced by their mothers. Fathers also had strong influence. It appears that the “generation gap” has been an exaggeration, or some people suggest, even a myth.

24. Concerns for the future: Some scholars suggest that beginning in the late 1990s contemporary family life became more characterized by a culture of busy-ness, where scattered work, education, and extracurricular schedules of family members often mean that they spend little time with each other. More contemporary research reinforces this. It isn’t just about time, it is about quality, engaged time spent together.

25. Adolescent aloneness could lead to new, more significant generation gaps. Living separate lives makes it more difficult to create shared interests.

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TEACHING SUGGESTIONS FOR ACTIVE LEARNING 1. The Ask Yourself questions and Exercise Your Mind boxes located throughout the chapter can be used as discussion points in class, or as a short reflective writing assignment.

2. Instructors should collect an assortment of articles about youth crime and/or gangs. Students can analyze the representations of youth crime in these articles, and then contrast those representations with statistics on the prevalence of youth crime. Students reach a considerably deeper level of awareness when they can see the selective and distorted nature of news stories about youth crime, the racialization of gangs, and the creation of moral panics for themselves.

3. Ask students what THEY think needs to be researched what it comes to understanding youth.

Arguably academics may not always be on top of the newest, most recent or prevalent issues in the lives of youth. Have them propose what they would research. This can be done as a discussion, with sticky notes on a board, or using programs like Jamboard or Google slides.

4. Have a class discussion about the culture surrounding substance use at your college or university. Students might talk about the availability of alcohol and drugs, or the extent of pressure that exists to use various substances in different kinds of settings. A fruitful discussion can emerge if students are encouraged to think back to the beginning of the academic year, when many universities and colleges have institutionally-sanctioned events (often sponsored by the alcohol industry) involving alcohol (e.g. beer tents; coupons for local bars located at the back of student event planners, etc.); this discussion brings the issue of power to the forefront.

5. What has COVID done for the experience of youth in Canada? Have students discuss the impact of the pandemic and consequence year of lockdowns, online classes and other social changes. Youth have been deviantized as being spreaders of the virus. Has COVID changed the use of substances? Has youth crime changed in the past year? (See News Article Suggestions for related discussions).

6. Instructors can address the social control of substance use by having students seek out and identify various means by which substance use is socially controlled on campus (e.g. peer support programs; pamphlets/displays set out prior to spring break or reading week; support groups for students with addictions; alcohol-free events; institutional policies).

7. The website for The Sociological Cinema (www.thesociologicalcinema.com) includes a video clip and accompanying discussion about the moral panic surrounding crack babies that emerged in the 1980s, and the ways in which it may reflect racist attitudes.

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VIDEO SUGGESTIONS ❖ Green, J. (2018). Social Animals. Subconscious Films. (Netflix, Vimeo). ❖ Ridberg, R. , Alper, L. , & Jhally, S. (Producers). (2004). Spin the Bottle: Sex, Lies, and Alcohol. Media Education Foundation. ❖ Blieden, M. (Director). (2007). Super High Me. Sixth Way Production and Wabi Pictures. ❖ Morris, M. (2019). Why Black Girls are Targeted for Punishment at School-and How to Change That. TED and YouTube. ❖ Wolf, M. (2013). Teenage. Ben Howe & Kyle Martin (Producers). (Vimeo, DVD, Google, Apple) https://www.teenagefilm.com/ - great website connected with this film with resources for educators and a youth blog.

WEBSITE SUGGESTIONS ❖ www.camh.ca The Canadian Association for Mental Health is a centralized website with research, programs, discussions, etc. related to all aspects of mental health. There are sections specific to the experience of youth. Focus on substances, crime, technology, etc. This website would allow instructors to weave multiple chapters together (youth, mental health, media,) as well as speak to both theoretical and practical application of deviance research and discourse. ❖ http://ihumanyouthsociety.org The iHuman Youth Society is an internationally recognized non-profit organization based in Edmonton, Alberta. It uses creative- and arts-based programming to give a voice to youth who are living high risk lifestyles, and guide them in becoming leaders in their communities.

The website itself reflects the organization’s creative approach. ❖ http://www.parl.gc.ca The website for Parliament is a useful source of information about debates over the decriminalization of marijuana. A basic search for “marijuana” brings up several issues of Hansard (i.e. the transcripts from Parliamentary sessions) that focus on these debates. You can also find a report written by Leah Spicer for the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs, “Historical and Cultural Uses of Cannabis and the Canadian ‘Marijuana Clash’ ”. ❖ https://www.homelesshub.ca/ This website acts as a central place to share and network research and practice around homelessness in Canada. There are sections that focus specifically on youth homelessness, which is unique to the experience of families or single adult individuals who are unhoused.

Youth have a unique set of risks and requirements when facing homelessness.

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NEWS ARTICLE SUGGESTIONS ❖ Rosen, K. (2021). When I Was Labeled a Troubled Teen, I Obliged. New York Times. ❖ Knight, R. et al. (2020). Young Adults, Unfairly Blamed for COVID-19 Spread, Now Face Stress and Uncertain Futures . The Conversation: Canada. ❖ Bueckert, K. (2020). Being Heard by a Teacher Made Students Feel Like Someone was in Their Corner, Ryan Broll says. CBC: Kitchener-Waterloo. ❖ Chen, T. (2020). YouTube is Demonetizing Popular Frat Channel Nelk Boys for Encouraging People to Ignore COVID safety. Buzz Feed News.

APPLY WHAT YOU KNOW Youth as a subject is one in this course that generates a lot of engagement and connection for students. It is relevant to their lives and something they are typically passionate about.

Considering a “problem-based” learning activity is a great way to bring this material to life and reach higher order thinking in your classroom.

To learn more about Problem-Based Learning – search Centres for Teaching & Learning, you will find a number of relevant resources. For example: https://www.queensu.ca/ctl/teaching-support/instructional-strategies/problem-based-learning This type of activity can be done on the spot, or as a longer assignment. It can be done face-toface, or online, and it can be done individually, in groups or with the entire class. You could ask students to stick specifically to the material of your course, or ask for extension research to support their work.

1. Select a social problem associated with youth or encourage students to determine their own interest. Examples direct from this chapter are youth crime, bullying, and substance abuse, but it could be extended to any other examples, such as school shootings, mental illness, social media use, body image disorders, etc.

Ask students to consider: a. What do we know now? – based on existing research and conversations. What are the trends, proposed ‘causes’, related issues? b. Why does this matter? What makes this a problem? How do we know? What is the impact? c. What do we do with what we know? If asked to propose a place to start to solve this problem, where would you start and why?

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Chapter 7: Looking Deviant: Physical Appearance LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students should be able to: 7.1 Identify the importance of physical appearance in society, and give examples of how physical appearance is socially controlled by others.

7.2 Outline the forms of body projects in people’s lives, and explain what the appearance of people’s bodies tells us, using a sociological lens.

7.3 Describe the different kinds of information that are obtained about body modification when studied from various locations along the objective–subjective continuum.

7.4 Define the “ideal” body weight according to scientific standards and social standards, and describe how many people are “too fat” and “too thin” according to these standards.

7.5 Explain how people who are overweight and underweight are viewed and treated, and describe the range of social control measures directed at them.

7.6 Describe the various ways that people who have been labelled “too fat” or “too thin” resist the social typing process.

LECTURE OUTLINE 1. Each of us puts a great deal of time and effort into our physical appearances daily since we know that people judge us by how we look, just as we judge others.

2. We know that physical appearance actually influences our opportunities and interactions.

What people think about us, based on how we look, influences what type of person they believe us to be and what we are capable of. Research confirms that this matters.

3. Physical appearance is the stimulus for the social typing we do every day and to which we are subject every day. But social typing based on physical appearance goes beyond our own individual likes and dislikes. Regardless of our own personal preferences for appearance, there are larger patterns of social typing that occur in our society.

4. Certain aspects of physical appearance are voluntary, while other aspects are involuntary. a. Voluntary aspects of physical appearance include choices of hair, clothing, and makeup.

At times, voluntary aspects of physical appearance are one component of lifestyle groups (e.g., Gothic, rave, punk). b. Involuntary aspects of physical appearance include height, disfigurements, and visible disabilities.

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c. Body size/weight is an aspect of physical appearance that straddles the boundary between voluntary and involuntary. d. Boundary between voluntary and involuntary forms of physical appearance is blurred as certain forms of physical appearance combine voluntary and involuntary aspects.

5. We all engage in certain types of body projects to change the appearance or functioning of our bodies, by camouflaging (e.g. makeup), extending (e.g. glasses; a cane), adapting (e.g. body building; laser hair removal), or redesigning (e.g. tattoos; piercings).

6. From the objective location along the objective–subjective continuum., people’s body projects tell us about characteristics of the individual. From the subjective location along the objective–subjective continuum., those projects tell us about characteristics of society, social relationships, and the self.

7. Among the endless variety of body projects that can affect physical appearance, there are redesigning projects commonly known as body modification or body art—activities such as tattooing, piercing, branding, and scarification. Adapting projects are related to body size or body weight. The social typing of body weight saturates all of us living in Canadian society today, permeating the fields of medicine, media, commercial industry, education, and interactions.

8. Physical appearance constitutes what Howard Becker called a master status, the primary label we attach to a person and which subsequently defines who the person is. a. The auxiliary traits we attach to master statuses are what make them significant. It isn’t about the fact that someone is obese specifically, but because socially, obesity is connected with laziness, or a lack of self control.

9. Body modification has been present for thousands of years. It has been used by religious devotees in the Middle Ages, by masculine subcultures in the mid-20th century, and by a growing proportion of youth (particularly women) today. a. Durkheim proposed that in pre-industrial societies, body modifications were a symbol of belonging and membership (Jacques, 2017). b. Overtime, body modification became associated with ‘primitive cultures’, then later carnivals and circus people, class, crime, etc.

10. In 2018, 33% of Canadian adults reported having at least one tattoo. It is more common in younger generations, and university students in particular. Gender differences seem to have shifted as well, where it used to be more common in males, but is now more equal.

11. From the more objective end of the objective-subjective continuum, researchers have traditionally explored the relationship between body modification and perceived “risky behaviour” (e.g. eating disorders, self-injury, substance abuse, criminality). These bodies are thought to show people as ‘at risk’ for other deviant behaviours. a. FIFA soccer players with tattoos were more extroverted, aggressive and risk-taking play (Mueller et al., 2020). b. Other research does not find a significantly negative relationship. In fact, some studies

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c.

d.

e. f.

g.

found a range of positive behaviours instead such as donating money to charities or doing volunteer work (Giles-Gorniak et al., 2016).

The connection with body modification and deviance is based on several other factors: # of body modifications (4 for university students), or the theme of design “darker” images, age (adolescents) of first modification.

Keagy (2017) points out that there has been a sampling bias in some objective research, where the research has been studied in deviantized populations to begin with (prison, drug rehab, etc.). Or, they fail to take into account other variables that are associated with behaviours like substance abuse, mental illness, or trauma.

Pediatric professionals have been advised to watch for tattoos or piercings in youth as a sign for other problems (Solis-Bravo et al, 2019).

The health risks that accompany body modification practices have also led researchers to analyze the motivations for these practices. Why would an individual engage in a behaviour that carries these risks? While some people may be motivated by aesthetic goals, others may be motivated by the process of identity formation that is inherent in adolescence and young adulthood.

We may learn that they are experimenting as part of a specific developmental stage in the lifespan (adolescence), or may be engaging in a variety of high-risk behaviours (such as workplace deviance), or could be experiencing psychological problems, or may come from marginalized backgrounds that contribute to a variety of negative outcomes.

12. From the more subjective end of the continuum, researchers have explored the role of body modification in individuals’ understandings of self; social interactions influence this process.

Critical theorists suggest that some viewpoints have been legitimized in society’s institutions, like education and the economy. a. Thinking about body modification from a dramaturgical perspective, people have to consider how and where they will present this in their ‘front-stage’. Social norms impact people’s decisions about whether to undergo body modification, and its size, design, and location. b. Other scholars use a narrative approach to examine body art as a form of public storytelling. Tattoos can signify important life events, beliefs, or group membership. c. Camacho and Brown (2018) point out, “Despite the fact that tattoos are now regarded as works of art and accepted in high culture [e.g., on fashion runways], the school of thought that retains the bond between tattoos and deviance remains in society’s subconscious” (p.

1037). d. Body modification is perceived as less acceptable for some social groups. Tattoos are perceived as less acceptable for females, particularly if the tattoos are large and visible.

Women may use tattoos in the development of their gendered selves, as expressions of established femininity (embodies the dominant cultural constructions of what a female body should look like) or resistant femininity (opposes dominant gender ideals, and serves as a form of resistance to existing structures of power in society). e. Tattoos tell stories of negotiation, resistance, or conformity to social norms governing gender. Those stories are interpreted by others, so that tattoos may mean something quite different to observers (e.g., promiscuity) than to the individuals who have tattoos (e.g., strength).

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13. Body modification and work are intertwined in several ways. In some cases, body art may signify membership in a specific occupational group, such as members of the military and first responders. In other cases, body art may reflect an individual’s identity as a worker.

Certain workplaces may accept body art, while others do not. The extent to which body art may be accepted depends its location, the organization or industry type, the proximity of the worker to customers or clients, and the design of the tattoo.

14. Stories of Interpersonal Relationships, people’s interactions and relationships with family and peers may influence decisions about body art. If there is disapproval, some will choose designs that are less obvious or more easily hidden. a. 40% of tattoos were to honour a loved one.

15. Subjectivist scholars see that body art tells us as much about society (structures and processes) as it does about individuals. Norms and the ways people accept or resist them.

Structures in work, and auxiliary traits that constrain, the nature of relationships and bonds, and finally that our physical body is connected to our self and the society we are in.

16. What is an “ideal” body size? In all cultures, certain body sizes are perceived as normal, conforming, or ideal. Outside of this range, bodies are deviant and open to judgement, with an expectation of modification.

17. Science and social standards provide somewhat differing answers.

18. According to science, a Scientific standard for an “ideal” body weight is based on health risks (i.e. harm). Calculations for body mass index (BMI) indicate the range of body sizes that are associated with the fewest health risks (i.e. a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9).

Individuals above that range are “overweight”, while those below that range are “underweight”. A BMI of 30.0 and higher is categorized as obese, with considerable risks for illness. a. Globally, 39 percent of adults are overweight or obese, and most of the world’s population lives in countries where more people die of complications from being overweight than of complications from being underweight (World Health Organization, 2020). b. In Canada 64% of adults and 30% of children are overweight or obese (2017). c. Fewer than 10% of people are underweight, and most are concentrated in developing nations where being underweight is associated with malnutrition. d. In higher income countries, extreme thinness may signal anorexia nervosa, a condition that combines an extremely low body weight with other physical and psychological symptoms. Between 1 and 3 % of females and fewer males will develop anorexia at some point in their lives. e. Anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. In fact, the mortality rate is 12x higher than all other causes of death combined. f. Among males, muscle dysmorphia (i.e. “bigorexia”) is more common than anorexia.

This is a body image disorder where someone is preoccupied with being unmuscular, taking obsessive lengths to reach a desired size. (extreme fitness, performance-enhancing drugs, distorted eating behaviours, etc.). Research estimates that between 7 and 22

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percent of males have symptoms of muscle dysmorphia and it is more prevalent in specific sports (competitive bodybuilders) g. Research into the causes of obesity emphasizes multiple factors—genetic, psychological and social factors (stress, SES, lifestyle, the saturation of culture with unhealthy food, and emotional factors).

19. Social standards for “ideal” body weight-considerably thinner than scientific standards, especially for women. Greater degree of “thinness” is required before a deviant label is attached, than is the case with the degree of “fatness” required before a deviant label is attached. a. Surveys of adults and children find considerable support for the claim that the bodies represented within the media are “ideal” (even while acknowledging that they may not be healthy). The ideals of physical attractiveness stem, in large part, from media portrayals.

Tylka and Calogero (2011) describe these media-perpetuated ideals as: fictions in that only a select few can realistically achieve them. These media- perpetuated ideals are fashions in that they become the standards for attractiveness in society. They are functions in that they “dictate gender- specific functions of women’s and men’s bodies”. b. Contemporary ideals of female and male bodies emerge from significant changes in media representations during the latter half of the twentieth century, that have continued today. Female media bodies have become taller and thinner. Only 5% of women outside media naturally have bodies similar to those seen in media (McQuaile, 2017). Male media bodies are leaner and more muscular.

20. The negative perceptions of people who are considered “too fat” are evident in many arenas. a. Although more than half of Canadian and American adults are either overweight or obese, people who are overweight face considerable stigmatization. They are stereotyped as emotionally and socially handicapped, lazy, sad, sloppy, and as having poor hygiene. b. Studies of children, teenagers, adults, doctors, nurses, and teachers have found pervasive stereotypes and an extreme dislike of “too fat”. Studies of children (and even some adults) reveal that they think being “fat” is worse than any other possible experience.

21. “Too fat” is socially controlled in numerous ways. a. Name-calling, teasing, other derogatory comments, and discrimination accompany the negative perceptions mentioned above.

• Children and adolescents who are ‘too fat’ are 2-3x more likely to be teased, bullied and face social exclusion by peers (OECD, 2019) • People who are overweight face discrimination in the institutions of society— education, health care, and employment (Rubino et al., 2020; Salas et al., 2019) • Social control measures are often attempting to ‘fix’ people who are too fat, thereby pathologizing it. b. The media provides countless numbers of ways to lose weight, and motivations to do so.

The media forms a “gestalt’ which then acts as a form of social control. It shows us what the ideal body is, and also how to control our bodies. c. “Too fat” is controlled through commercialization (the weight-loss industry), medicalization (doctors’ advice to lose weight with unsafe fads, drugs, or procedures).

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22. The health risks associated with being overweight have led governments to implement various programs and policies to encourage citizens to eat a healthy diet and become physically active. a. Four categories of government policies and programs are typically found: (1) public information and education (2) increase availability to healthy food (3) modify cost of food based on health (4) restrict unhealthy food.

23. Consequences of Social Control: While some measures of social control can lead to healthier choices in diet and exercise, the pervasiveness of such measures also contribute to a “fear of fatness” (Couch et al., 2016, p. 63) and body dissatisfaction. a. Even the youngest of children are affected. A study in Sweden found that 1/3 of children were dissatisfied with their bodies and the proportion who had dieted had steadily increased over two decades (Berg & Larsen, 2020). b. Social media shows physical appearance as a central part of images. Some are influenced by media messages more than others. Social comparison also plays a role. Some compare themselves more frequently. c. Social controls on media contribute to self stigma. This leads to shame, and a greater risk of negative outcomes (depression, lowered self-esteem, social isolation, substance use).

24. The “deviance dance” is evident in the resistance to the social typing of “too fat”. Several organizations promote “fat acceptance” and encourage political advocacy. Despite its role in portraying a thin ideal, the media is also involved in resistance to that ideal (e.g. magazine articles about the dangers of diet pills).

25. At a certain point, a label of “too thin” is attached to some individuals. It seems to take much longer to receive a social response to thinness. People need to reach the point of emaciated before they face concern. At that point, social control efforts emerge. a. “Too thin” is socially controlled at various formal levels. Socially people who are too thin are described at nauseating or accused of ‘looking like a junkie’. The medical community, frequently in conjunction with social agencies and programs, makes people who are at the most extreme end of thinness (anorexic) subject to social control efforts. b. The Canadian Eating Disorders Strategy 2019-2029 is a coalition of organizations that has strategies to address former gaps in the process. They focus on six pillars (1) prevention, (2) public education, (3) improving access and removing barriers to treatment, (4) caregiver support, (5) training of health professionals and people who work with youth (6) research. c. Interpersonal interactions can be an ongoing source of judgement and control. People who are too thin can be seen as less attractive, experience ‘concern’, resentment, or admiration from those around them, whether justified or not.

26. The “deviance dance” is evident in the resistance to the social typing of “too thin”. People who have been so labelled resist the social typing process in several ways. The idea that you can never be too rich or too thin, for example, illustrates resistance to the idea that thinness is deviant and in need of social control. The extent to which weight-loss products and messages permeate our media and commercial industry reinforces this notion. Celebrities who are criticized for being too thin respond through the media, sometimes to emphasize that fact that

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they are naturally thin (and not anorexic). At other times, they condemn the condemners, a technique of neutralization. “Ana” websites provide anorexic individuals with the motivation and tools for continuing their weight loss (even while hospitalized) and avoiding detection; some search engines now have policies to delete links to “Ana” sites when they are identified.

TEACHING SUGGESTIONS FOR ACTIVE LEARNING 1. The Ask Yourself questions and Exercise your Mind boxes located throughout the chapter can be used as discussion points in class, or as a written exercise/assignment.

2. Prior to students having read the chapter, provide them with a range of photographs of people—very thin models in fashion magazines; various forms of modified bodies (see reference under “Website Suggestions”); the cover of a male bodybuilding magazine; advertisements for makeup, hair care products, or weight loss products. Initiate a discussion of what messages these bodies are conveying. What do these bodies tell us about the individuals within the photographs, or about individuals who purchase these magazines or products? What do these bodies tell us about relationships? What do these bodies tell us about the society we are living in?

3. It is likely that a significant proportion of students in the class have tattoos or piercings.

Some of these students may be willing to talk about the motivations for their body modification practices, and the way they have subsequently been treated by others. They may have been stared or laughed at, or perhaps they conceal their modification prior to going to work or visiting certain family members. Ask them to discuss what decisions they made and why. (Where, what, how big, etc.).

4. Have students discuss the role that body modification plays with self identity, social interaction and the idea of empowerment. Have students take a look at the following resources and then discuss how these fit into the research discussed throughout the chapter.

• Homeboy Industries is a nonprofit that helps support people integrating back into society after prison. One of their services is Tattoo Removal. There are videos (on their YouTube channel) or testimonials on their website. https://homeboyindustries.org/services/tattoo-removal/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYAzPQHW8TA • P.Ink Project is a nonprofit that uses tattoos to cover scars after a mastectomy. It is offered as an alternate option to breast implants. There is a website and also a YouTube channel as well. https://www.p-ink.org/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_t7V3olN4w&t=7s 5. Before beginning to lecture on body size, ask students to write down the name of who they think has the “ideal” female body and male body. Obtain photographs of any famous people who have been named (likely, students’ list will almost exclusively consist of famous people); their photographs will be easily found on the Internet. Bring these photographs to

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class to initiate a discussion of the social standards for the “ideal” body, and the role of media in perpetuating those standards.

6. Ask the students to search online for pictures of female celebrities and their body sizes from the 1950s through today and discuss the changes they see. a. As stated in the chapter, a wider range of body sizes are perceived as acceptable for men than for women. Bringing several popular women’s magazines into class, and simply reading the headlines aloud to students can illustrate this. Instructors can also divide students into groups and have them conduct a content analysis of the magazines, where they determine the proportion of articles and/or ads that are about weight loss. b. Alternatively, a comparison of appearance-related headlines in popular women’s and men’s magazines can lead to a discussion of discourses of gender; for example, women are to be “slim” and “skinny” (i.e. delicate) while men are too “hard” and “strong.” The process of gendering becomes especially evident to students if instructors have a group of male students read the appearance-related headlines from female-oriented magazines, and vice versa.

VIDEO SUGGESTIONS ❖ Silverman, L. (Director & Producer). (2007). Flesh and Blood. GRB Entertainment. ❖ Taplan, D. C. (Director), & Torrance, J. (Producer). (2002). Shredded. National Film Board of Canada. ❖ Precht, C. & Gyllenhall, K. M. (Directors). (2008). Beauty Mark: Body Image and the Race for Perfection. Media Education Foundation. ❖ Refinery29. (2019). What Beauty is Like for Homeless Women on the Streets. YouTube. ❖ Anderson, A. (Educator). (nd). The History of Tattoos. TEDEd. ❖ Rossini, E. (2016) The Illusionists. Media Education Foundation.

There is a website that has a blog that could also be interesting to review

WEBSITE SUGGESTIONS ❖ http://www.nedic.ca/ This website contains information on eating disorders and weight preoccupation. Navigate to the Know The Facts tab and click on Statistics from the drop-down menu for many helpful resources. ❖ https://nied.ca/canadian-eating-disorders-strategy/ This website is Canada’s first strategy to positively support eating disorders. It is a ten-year plan that is in action right now.

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❖ http://www.wdwinfo.com/ From the Walt Disney World drop-down menu, select Theme Parks, then Epcot. This webpage includes a video tour of the “Habit Heroes 2” exhibit, which replaced the controversial original exhibit. In the newer exhibit, characters like “Lead-Bottom” and “Glutton” have been replaced by “Quench”, “Dynamo”, and “Fuel.” The tour is also available on YouTube (“Habit Heroes at Epcot with Kathy and Teresa”).

NEWS ARTICLE SUGGESTIONS ❖ Yancy-Bragg, N. (2020). Teacher Can No Longer Teach Kindergarten After Parent Complained About Tattoos. USA Today. ❖ Chiasson, P. (2020). Eating Disorders in Canadian Athletes on the Rise Amid Pandemic.

CanadaPress.

APPLY WHAT YOU KNOW The Companion Website to accompany Deviance, Conformity and Social Control in Canada is a student resource that includes chapter quizzes, Deviance in Print (a list of key text resources), Deviance at the Movies (a list of recommended videos), links to recommended articles, and a series of short video/audio clips to accompany the textbook.

Chapter 7 Video Clip: Flesh Wounds: Marked Bodies in the Civilising Process This is a set of four short video clips featuring Dr. Michael Atkinson, whose research is described in the textbook. The first video clip is “What is a marked body to a sociologist?” (1:30 minutes). He describes that when a sociologist looks at tattoos, he/she sees social structure, roles, identities, and collective affiliations; he then connects that view back to C. Wright Mills’ notion of the sociological imagination.

The second video clip is “The crisis of masculinity” (1:55 minutes), where he describes his rereading of his interview transcripts on tattooing, within the context of the men’s search for identity in contemporary society. The third clip is “Tattooing as a symbol of individuality” (1:37 minutes), which he connects back to the crisis in masculinity. The final clip is “Why now?”

(3:09). In this clip, he addresses the question of why tattooing is so popular at this moment in history. He answers that question in terms of the commodification of the body and the cult of individualism, wherein tattoos become a confirmation of identity for individuals.

1. For use in class, the following discussion questions can be posed: a. Dr. Atkinson states that contemporary society is characterized by “commodification of the body.” In what ways, other than forms of body modification, are our bodies “commodified” today? b. If we accept the proposition that tattoos and piercings have become indications of conformity rather than individuality, where might the search for individuality take people

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in the future? In what ways, might people try to portray themselves as unique and distinct? c. Consider what Dr. Atkinson says about tattooing as related to both the crisis of masculinity and to the individualism of contemporary culture. To what extent do you think that body modification projects, such as tattooing, are an expression of an individual's uniqueness or a reflection of their conformity?

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Chapter 8: Mental Health and Illness LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students should be able to: 8.1 Describe the prevalence, patterns, and causes of mental illness.

8.2 Describe the costs of mental illness for individuals, their families, and the larger society.

8.3 Explain how mental illness is subject to social control through (1) the stigmatization of mental illness and (2) the medicalization of mental disorder.

8.4 Describe the efforts to reduce the stigmatization of mental illness and to improve the resources that are available to people with mental disorders.

8.5 Explain why the diagnostic handbook used by mental health professionals is criticized.

8.6 Describe Rosenhan’s classic study on mental illness, and explain the consequences of his research.

LECTURE OUTLINE 1. The concept of mental disorder consists of two different dimensions. First, it entails the experience of the disorder itself—its specific symptoms. Second, mental disorder has a social dimension. Human beings attribute meaning to their symptoms, and that meaning arises from their interactions with other people. Mental disorders are defined as psychological, biological, or behavioural dysfunction(s) that interfere with daily life- “alterations in thinking, mood or behaviour associated with significant distress and impaired functioning” (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2019).

2. In any given year, approximately 20 percent of people will experience mental illness and 50 percent will experience a mental disorder by the age of 40 (Canadian Mental Health Association, 2020). The World Health Organization (2020) reported that there was a 13% increase in mental illness worldwide from 2007-2017, with the most common being mood and anxiety disorders.

3. Some social groups are more susceptible than others. LGBTQ2IA+ , recent immigrants and refugees, ethnocultural minorities, members of racialized groups and people employed in certain occupations (first responders) are at greater risk.

4. Mental illness has an etiology that includes genetic, biological, psychological and social factors. According to the World Health Organization (2019), mental illness emerges from “not only individual attributes such as the ability to manage one’s thoughts, emotions, .

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behaviours and interactions with others, but also social, cultural, economic, political and environmental factors such as national policies, social protection, living standards, working conditions, and community social supports” (para. 20).

5. The greatest factor is socioeconomic status. There is a clear link between low income, financial insecurity, poverty and mental illness. There has been a longstanding question about the direction of the relationship. Which one comes first? a. Social causation hypothesis: more life stresses and with fewer resources cause those in lower classes to experience mental illness. b. Social selection hypothesis: people with mental disorders fall into lower SES because they struggle to function due to their illness. c. Some research now shows that this relationship may vary throughout the life course.

Between childhood and adulthood, social causation and social selection appear to have equal influence; between early adulthood and old age, the preponderance of research evidence supports the social causation hypothesis (Hoffman et al., 2019). d. The direction is also dependent on the specific mental disorder. Social causation seems to be more connected with more common disorders (mood & anxiety), whereas social selection is more connected with schizophrenia, conduct, ADHD. e. Economic difficulties can be tied not only to overall social class (e.g., lower class versus middle class) but also to changes in financial status due to local, regional, national, or global economic patterns (recessions, labour market changes, etc.).

6. Mental illness is more common in adolescents and young adults, and most major mental disorders first emerge during this time in life. a. Youth can experience mental health challenges, even without a diagnosed disorder. In a study, 39% of participants had experienced moderate to severe psychological distress within the past month (Boak et al., 2018). Among the students in the study by Boak and colleagues (2018), the closer they were to high school graduation, the larger the proportion who reported symptoms of psychological distress. b. Biology, psychology and social factors specific to the age have an impact. Identity formation, life transitions are a big part of the stress at this age. c. Some groups of youth are at greater risk of mental illness or psychological distress than others. Post-secondary students have distinct challenges that are now the focus of specific pan-Canadian research, trying to create a national strategy. d. Other risk factors include low SES, LGBTQ2IA+ identity and/or expression. e. Indigenous youth have had crisis situations in particular communities. The suicide rate is 4-6x higher than non-Indigenous youth, up to 30x higher in the most extreme communities. 90% of the suicides occur in 10% of the least healthy communities (McCue, 2016).

7. The type of mental illness is correlated to specific social factors. Women are more likely to experience mood and anxiety disorders. Anti-social and conduct disorders are more prevalent in men. PTSD is more common in refugee populations or within specific occupations (first responders).

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8. The costs of mental illness are considerable to individuals, their families, and society. a. People with mental disorders have lower levels of educational attainment, lower incomes, lower employment rates, higher rates of physical illness, higher rates of teen pregnancy, and greater family instability. b. National costs related to premature deaths, absenteeism, lost tax revenues, health care cost, etc. In fact, mental health is the second highest hospital expenditure (Canadian Mental Health Association, 2020).

9. Effective treatment of mental illness would benefit individuals, families and society as a whole.

10. 80% of people with mental illnesses do not receive treatment. In high income countries (Canada), only 50% receive treatment. Why? Lack of services, long wait times, perception of inadequate treatment, stigma, neglect from family and community.

11. Wolf (2007) suggests that cost-of-illness estimates should be viewed with caution. These estimates are not just a product of biochemistry, as biochemistry interacts with economics and social norms. Cost-of-illness estimates themselves are, in part, reflective of the negative attitudes that surround mental illness. Cost-of-illness estimates only take on social meaning when we look at the ways in which we collectively view and treat people with mental illness.

12. Mental illness is socially controlled in two ways—through stigmatization and medicalization.

13. Attitudes toward mental illness have not improved over the past several decades. a. Continued stigmatization can be attributed, in part, to the framing practices of media.

Within the media, mental illness is framed through negative stereotypes: unpredictable, violent, dangerous and criminal (Atanasova et al, 2019). Visually, characters are often characterized with bodies and/or clothing that messy and dirty (Sathyara & Sweetha, 2019). Research finds that media representations influence the public’s perceptions of mental illness. b. Public perceptions of mental illness are associated with stereotypes. This is the case for both laypersons and even mental health professionals. Negative social attitudes demonstrate blatant dehumanization. Boysen et al (2020) found that participants in Canada and the US placed people with mental illnesses at the second lowest (5 out of 6) on an evolutionary scale, meaning these people were less evolved (subhuman). c. The stigmatization of mental illness can, in some cases, contribute to self- stigma in individuals with mental disorders. This is a widespread problem. A study of 200 people with varied mental disorders ALL had high levels of self-stigmatization (Tanriverdi et al., 2020).

14. The medicalization of deviance moves the labelling and control into the hands of medical experts. Psychiatrists determine which thoughts or behaviours are illness based on the level to which it interferes with daily functioning. This has not always been the approach. a. At one time the thoughts and behaviours of mental illness were connected to demonic possession. Treatment came in the form of physical torture to cast the demons out.

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Refusing to conform was a sign of ‘allegiance with the devil’. Labels included ‘witch’ or ‘heretic’ and a trial that lead to conviction and death would follow. b. As science replaced religious explanations, and responsibility feel on families or communities. The control of mental illness became medicalized in the 19th century, as asylums were created to train the mentally ill to conform to society’s norms. This was less about rehabilitation and treatment and more about removing them from normal society. c. In the 20th century the asylums were transformed into psychiatric hospitals that provided a wide range of medical treatments for people with mental illnesses. Some of the treatments were extreme, lobotomies for example.

15. Since the 1960s, deinstitutionalization (i.e. treatment within the community rather than within institutions) has characterized the treatment of mental illness. a. Treatments today are extensive and often involved a complex and personalized plan.

Therapy, medication and social supports can be effective when combined in the right way for each patient. b. Preventative measures are also very effective. Keeping people healthy and catching things early is the ideal.

16. Deinstitutionalization has been beneficial to many people with mental disorders. It is more respectful and humane. However, it has also resulted in people who fall through the cracks and end up receiving no treatment at all. Effective treatment outside of an institutional setting is predicated upon several requirements: a. A supportive family network: For many people, this exists more as a popular cultural “ideal” rather than a reality. b. An accepting community: Stigmatization within the community is a common experience for people with mental illnesses. c. Adequate community resources: The lack of funding for mental health means that community resources are often inadequate, especially in smaller urban or rural areas. d. A place to live within the community: For many reasons (e.g. lack of employment; weak family networks; failure to take medication), people with mental disorders may become homeless. Recently “housing first” has become the principle of placing individuals into programs. No longer are people required to be substance free or have controlled mental disorders before they are eligible for housing support. This allows them to take care of basic needs before they start down the treatment paths.

17. With a decrease in funding and access to mental health with deinstitutionalization, other institutions take on the role. More than a half century ago, Penrose (1939) proposed that a hydraulic relationship exists between the mental health care system and the criminal justice system – when one contracts the other expands. Wolf (2007) argues that this is precisely what occurred when deinstitutionalization was not accompanied sufficient community resources; the mental health care system contracted, and the prison population expanded.

18. Mental disorders are socially typed as deviant at all levels of society: by the general public, in employment, housing, medical care, etc. a. At the institutional level, policies and programs embedded within the discrimination

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paradigm attempt to reduce the stigmatization of mental illness and its consequences.

For example, various social organizations educate the public about mental illness, and provide support to people with mental illnesses (e.g. Canadian Mental Health Association). b. The insufficient and inadequate care that people with mental disorders are subject to in many parts of the world is resisted within the disease paradigm. Social organizations provide information to mental health consumers and initiate advocacy efforts.

19. Individuals with mental disorders may engage in acts of resistance to the stigmatization of mental illness, using stigma management techniques. a. Trying to pass (i.e. hiding one’s mental illness from others) and dividing their social worlds (i.e. carefully managing who is or is not permitted to know). b. Other techniques are more active, such as deflecting (i.e. distancing oneself from an identity based on mental illness) and challenging (i.e. changing people’s attitudes through confrontation or education). c. What would influence whether someone actively resisted stigma? Thoits (2011, 2016) finds that past experience with stigma resistance, familiarity with mental illness in a friend or family member, greater coping resources, identifying with multiple roles in daily life and less severe, time-limited mental illness. Those who are able to challenge have better quality of life, fewer symptoms and a stronger sense of empowerment.

20. Resisting inadequate and insufficient care is part of the work that advocacy groups do, and it happens in a multitude of ways. a. Demands for better funding and improved services, with more information for mental health consumers about their options. b. Support groups for specific disorders – including opportunities for education and information about improved treatments c. Canada developed a national strategy in 2012. The key priorities are (1) suicide prevent (2) co-occurrence of mental health challenges and substance abuse, (3) population-based initiatives, and (4) engagement with Canadians. d. Resources and programs focused on specific groups include LGBTQ2IA+ kids and youth plus their parents. Other programming is needed for immigrant, refugee, ethnocultural and racialized groups (Mental Health Commission of Canada, 2019). Programs for Indigenous communities are also required, focusing on large social and economic conditions plus empowerment are the primary goal. Indigenous youth have started WeMatter, a youth-led organization trying to raise hope and promote health.

21. Resisting medicalization also occurs at multiple levels of society. a. Criticisms of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and criticisms of the daily practices of mental health professionals. Many people point out that what is a “mental illness” (by its inclusion in the DSM) is subject to debate. b. The inclusion of homosexuality as a mental disorder was passionately debated, and it was removed from the DSM in 1973. c. In contemporary society, similar debates exist for ADHD (Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). Critics say that an impossible number of children are being diagnosed with ADHD. They suggest that in many cases, social forces (e.g. family

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problems; a culture characterized by chronic multitasking) are creating the behavioral and attention problems that children are experiencing. Other critics claim that normal, active, playful childhood is being socially typed as deviant. d. Outside of the debates over specific disorders, other critics emphasize methodological shortcomings of the DSM, and the power relations that underlie its creation and revision.

22. Individuals and groups that point to non-medical factors that influence diagnosis and treatment “resist” the daily practices of mental health professionals. a. Rosenhan’s (1973) study revealed the influence of social factors on psychiatric diagnosis. In the first part of his study, 8 “pseudo-patients” were admitted to psychiatric institutions and then tried to get themselves releases as soon as possible by acting “normal”. It took between 7 and 52 days for all the pseudo-patients to be released; even then, they were released with psychiatric diagnoses. The other patients were more accurate than the medical professionals in detecting the “sanity” of the pseudo-patients.

Perhaps even more importantly, Rosenhan’s research revealed the dehumanizing treatment faced by patients in many psychiatric institutions. Rosenhan concluded that psychiatric diagnosis was a precarious process, and strongly influenced by social (rather than medical) factors. b. Rosenhan’s (1973) research has theoretical implications as well. First, it illustrates Goffman’s concept of the total institution, where individual identities are dismantled and new “inmate” identities are constructed. Second, it illustrates the assumptions of labelling theory (Chapter 3), wherein being labelled carries negative consequences. c. Labelling can have positive consequences as well. A person with a mental disorder must be accurately labelled to receive appropriate. Labelling can also entitle individuals to what Talcott Parsons called a sick role, where they are given a temporary reprieve from some of the responsibilities of daily life. Not everyone with a mental disorder will be assigned a sick role; it is more likely for those with more severe disorders. d. The role of social factors in diagnosis and treatment have become a focus of more recent research. It has been found that psychiatric diagnosis and treatment are influenced by race and sex.

• Diagnoses of conduct and behavioural disorders are more common among Black youth, and diagnoses of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are more common among white youth (Hargett, 2020) • Research has also found sex differences in treatment—women are more likely than men to be prescribed psychotropic drugs, even with the same diagnosis.

23. The final form of resistance to the medicalization of mental illness critiques that idea of ‘mental illness’ itself. Thomas Szasz (1994) argues that mental illness is a false label that denies free will. While recognizing physical diseases of the brain, he argues that the DSM does not connect to any of these. The label of mental illness is used to treat some who do not need or want it, and allows others to avoid responsibility for criminal acts. This is obviously controversial to this day.

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TEACHING SUGGESTIONS FOR ACTIVE LEARNING 1. The Ask Yourself questions and Exercise Your Mind boxes located throughout the chapter can be used as discussion points in class, or as other forms of learning activities.

2. The website for Sociological Images (http://www.thesocietypages.org) includes a blog entry called “The racialization of mental illness” by Arturo Baiocchi. This entry contains an extensive discussion (and a series of accompanying images) that instructors can use in class, about changing perceptions of schizophrenia, inside and outside of the psychiatric community. In the 1950s, schizophrenia was socially constructed as a white, middle class disorder. However, in the 1960s it came to be constructed as a black disorder, associated with the civil rights movement.

3. Reviewing a case in Canada and discuss the relationship between mental health, criminality.

This is a great way to generate powerful conversations for this chapter. Vince Li was the individual who attacked and decapitated his seat partner on a Greyhound in 2008. In 2009 Li was admitted to a high security mental health facility when determined he was not criminally responsible for his crime due to an undiagnosed mental health disorder. In 2015 he was released amidst a lot of controversary. Share resources with students, there are many articles about this and also a Wikipedia page that outlines objectively the case (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Tim_McLean) and then have students engage in a conversation or related assignment.

4. This is a topic where a guest speaker is particularly useful. Instructors may want to bring in a representative from a local mental health support group, a representative from a homeless shelter, or an on-campus counsellor.

5. Instructors may want to show the current public awareness campaign of the Canadian Mental Health Association. The commercials and print ads for the campaign are available on their website (see reference under website suggestions).

6. Recently, media attention has been given to the prevalence of anxiety and depression in university and college students.

• Instructors can have students search for the information about mental illness and the resources available to students on their own campus. Students should search both the institution’s website and the physical campus (e.g. the student resource centre, the medical clinic). In addition, the website for The Sociological Cinema includes a video that can complement class discussion of this activity: “The view from here: Depression on college campuses” (25:26 minutes) (http://www.thesociologicalcinema.com).

• Instructors could have students do an evaluation or analysis of the policies or services available for them through the school or local health care providers. Have them review and critique what currently exists. Identify issues, assumptions, things that are missing.

Consider creating a project that allows them to propose solutions (preventative or responsive) to their unique needs based on what the research is showing.

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VIDEO SUGGESTIONS ❖ Bienstock, R. E. (Producer), & Harper, S. (Director). (2012). Age of Anxiety. CBC Doc Zone (http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/). ❖ Forman, M. (Director), Kesey, K. (Writer), & Goldman, B. (Writer). (1975). One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Fantasy Films. ❖ California Mental Health Services Authority (2013). A New State of Mind: Ending the Stigma of Mental Illness. (Narrated by Glenn Close). KVIE-TV Sacramento. ❖ Kastner, J. (Producer). (2014). Out of Mind, Out of Sight: Insight the Brockville Psych.

National Film Board of Canada & TVO. (YouTube).

WEBSITE SUGGESTIONS ❖ http://www.cmha.ca The website for the Canadian Mental Health Association provides information on the prevalence and treatment of mental illness, stigmatization, and public education. It also contains links to other useful national and international sites. ❖ http://mentalhealthcommission.ca The website for the Mental Health Commission of Canada illustrates the programs and policies that are associated with Canada’s Mental Health Strategy, and the integration of both the discrimination and disease paradigms discussed in the chapter. ❖ http://www.thejackproject.org This is the website for The Jack Project, a non-profit organization formed following the suicide of Queen’s University student Jack Windeler. The organization’s focus is the mental health and well-being of Canada’s young people. The site contains a wide range of resources for youth, parents and educators; it also has a video of a Ted Talk by Jack’s father. ❖ https://mindyourmind.ca/ This website is a resource that is specifically designed for youth mental health in Canada.

There are several tools, resources, information, and tips all centred on prevention, mental health promotion and support as needed.

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NEWS ARTICLE SUGGESTIONS ❖ Simpson, S. (n.d.) Why Are So Many People with Mental Illness in Jail? CAMH. This article provides three main reasons why mental illness is so prevalent in the prison population. ❖ Chanicka, J. (2018). Marginalized People Face a Unique Mental Health Struggle.

Huffington Post Canada.

This article addresses some systemic biases that impact the experience of racialized and ethnic discrimination with mental illnesses.

APPLY WHAT YOU KNOW The Companion Website to accompany Deviance, Conformity and Social Control in Canada is a student resource that includes chapter quizzes, Deviance in Print (a list of key text resources), Deviance at the Movies (a list of recommended videos), links to recommended articles, and a series of short video/audio clips to accompany the textbook.

Chapter 8 Video Clip: The Long Journey to Becoming 10% Happier (9:12 minutes) In this video clip, ABC News Anchor and journalist, Dan Harris, shares his experiences with anxiety, panic attacks and depression. Using humour and a down to earth approach, he discusses his journey from a very public on-air panic attack to his determination to find strategies that would help him manage his mental health problems.

Harris identifies that his quest for professional success and his perfectionist tendencies were contributing factors in the development of his anxiety and subsequent panic attacks. He goes on to discuss his dangerous initial strategy of self- medication including cocaine abuse—a practice that he realises now culminated in his panic attack on live television. His anxiety and panic opened the door to depression and Harris soon realised that he had to take a different approach to helping himself.

Around this time, ABC news assigned him to the segment on religion and spirituality. Because of his new journalistic focus, Harris decided that in addition to meeting with traditional religious figures, he would explore also the enormous, profitable and sometimes controversial world of self-help gurus and their theories and approaches to spirituality, mental health and success in life.

Consequently, Harris interviewed several individuals including as Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle from the self-help subculture. Ultimately, Harris found them lacking, often offering what he found to be impractical, shallow or unrealistic advice.

The film clip shows how Harris eventually finds a workable approach when his wife—a doctor—gave him medical literature explaining the efficacy of meditation. Although initially very skeptical—Harris worried that he would have to adopt a spiritual belief system in order to meditate—he explored the practice of meditation in his quest for improved mental health. His perseverance paid off and eventually Harris found a concrete way to help ease his anxiety and depression and counter the demands of his hectic life.

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In true journalistic style, Harris wondered if meditation was helping any other unlikely or resistant candidates. Thus, he met with U.S marines who had also discovered the benefits of meditation as well as Rivers Cuomo, the lead singer of rock band Weezer. Harris sums up his journey to improved mental health in realistic terms, stating that his life is much improved, and he is happier, but that the process is certainly not complete.

1. Students are directed to this video clip at the end of Chapter 8 in the textbook, and are asked the following questions: a. From your reading of the chapter, identify some of the factors that likely contributed to Dan Harris hiding his mental health problems and engaging in self-medication. b. Why do you think that Harris and the marines that he met with were initially resistant to practicing meditation? c. The chapter examines the evolution of approaches to mental health up to the medicalization of it. What do you think Harris’s main message to his audience is in terms improving mental health? Will his approach satisfy everyone? Discuss.

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Chapter 9: What Do You Believe? Religion, Science, and Deviance LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students should be able to: 9.1 Identify the two types of relationships that exist between belief systems and deviance.

9.2 Describe the traditional typology that helps determine which religions are “deviant,” and explain why sects and cults are considered “deviant.”

9.3 Describe the different levels of social control that are directed at “deviant” religions and the ways that deviant labels are resisted.

9.4 Explain how religion served as a social typer of deviance in the cases of the witch persecutions, residential schooling, and the child-savers movement.

9.5 Describe the origins, causes, and control of scientific misconduct.

9.6 Explain why a science’s location on the deviant science–real science continuum may change over time.

9.7 Describe why science is a powerful social typer of deviance and how that power has manifested itself through history.

LECTURE OUTLINE 1. Religion and science are both belief systems. A belief is any proposition thought to be true, regardless of whether it is true or not. A belief system is a set of interrelated beliefs.

Religious doctrines, the ideologies of different political parties, and the knowledge contained within various scientific disciplines are all examples of belief systems that make claims about what is “true”.

2. There are two types of relationships between belief systems and deviance. a. Belief systems as deviant: Acts of deviance may occur within groups of people who adhere to belief systems. At times, even entire belief systems themselves may be socially typed as deviant and subjected to measures of social control. b. Belief systems as social typers of deviance: Belief systems, or the way they are enacted, steer the description, evaluation, and prescription components of the social typing process. They dictate to us what behaviours or characteristics should be considered deviant, and what the consequences should/will be.

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3. Sociological analyses of religion explore the social embeddedness of religious belief systems—the processes by which religious belief systems emerge, the role that religion plays in people’s lives, and the relationships between religion and other social structures or processes.

4. Religion as deviance includes deviant acts carried out by religious institutions or representatives of those institutions, talking and the fact that certain religious groups are thought of as deviant in their entirety.

5. Four categories of religious groups are common, and deviance is determined by which category a religious group is assigned to. Traditionally, a typology that distinguishes between ecclesia (i.e. state religions, such as the Anglican church in England or Islam in Iran), churches (i.e. extremely large and established religions, such as Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity), sects (i.e. smaller, rigid offshoots of churches, such as the Amish or Taliban), and cults (i.e. even smaller, more rigid, and oppositional groups, such as Heaven’s Gate and the Branch Davidians) have been the foundation for the social typing of deviance. a. Within this typology, ecclesia and churches have been perceived as “normal”. Cults and sects have been socially typed as “deviant”. They exist in a state of tension with the larger society. The extent of the state of tension is dependent on the magnitude of differences between the religious group and society, the level of antagonism that members of the religious group feel for the larger society, and the extent to which the group segregates itself for the larger society. b. Sects are “churches of the disinherited” (Niebuhr, cited in Schwadel, 2014, p. 100) in that people of lower social status and members of marginalized groups are drawn to the doctrine of sects, which frequently emphasizes that rewards come not in life, but rather in the after-life. Because of this belief, sects are less aligned with the secular world than churches are. This results in distance between sects and wider society, which then results in social control of these groups. c. When groups integrate more into general society, the control of them lessens. For example, the Seventh Day Adventists are now considered a denominational sect, suggesting that they are on the verge of being a denomination of a mainstream church, whereas the Jehovah’s Witnesses are considered an established sect because of the tension with and segregation from the larger society. d. Tension between a sect and society is bidirectional in that a sect may have certain levels of antagonism toward society but society may also have certain levels of antagonism toward a particular sect. Furthermore, existing hostilities in society toward specific religious groups may cause a sect’s belief system to become more polarized. When a deviantized group becomes more extreme as a response to hostilities or social control efforts from outsiders, it is referred to as deviancy amplification (Becker, 1963).

6. Cults have a greater level of tension with society than sects do. Popular images of cults are fueled by media images of those cults that have engaged in the most newsworthy of actions, such as mass suicide (e.g. Heaven’s Gate) or mass violence (e.g. Aum Shinrikyô).

Consequently, popular images of cults emphasize mind control, violence, sexual deviance, and child abuse.

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a. Through its framing of cults, the media constructs them as “folk devils,” which can contribute to moral panics. Cults, like sects, are characterized by diversity in beliefs and practices, as well as the level of overt tension that exists with society. However, popular images of cults and the resulting public attitudes contribute to more overriding tensions for cults. b. For both cults and sects, these tensions are played out in the “deviance dance”—the various means of social control of these deviant religions and the corresponding resistance to those means of control. c. Cults, like sects, are characterized by diversity in beliefs and practices, as well as by the level of overt tension that exists with society.

7. Religious institutions often have characteristics that create a foundation for harmful behaviours. a. For instance, “obedience, patriarchy, claims of divine justification, appeals to God and salvation outcomes, the use of familial language, and closed communities” play key roles in grooming children for sexual abuse (Raine & Kent, 2019).

8. Internationally, human rights documents recognize freedom of religion as a fundamental human right. a. However, that freedom is not unbridled. Threats to public health, public order, and the rights of others are considered reasonable grounds for violating freedom of religion in democratic societies. These caveats enable the social control of deviant religions.

9. The anti-cult movement and the counter cult movement exert social controls over deviant religions. a. Anti-cult groups consist of former cult members, parents of cult members, mental health professionals, legal professionals, and academic researchers that provide information about destructive cults, lobby the government, and provide services to people affected by destructive cults. b. Counter-cult groups have fundamentalist Christian foundations. Their concern is based upon groups that fail to use the “right” interpretation of the Bible. Therefore, any group that does not adhere to fundamentalist Christian interpretations of the Bible is labelled a “cult”.

10. The media exerts control over deviant religions by serving as a tool for anti-cult groups to spread their messages, and by carrying sensationalistic news stories about the small number of cults that engage in extreme behaviours. a. The media has been able to create powerful, long lasting archetypes of what a cult looks like and what it is about. For example, it has focused on social isolation, charismatic leaders, or even created fictional images of uniforms and extreme practices that have framed public perception of cults today.

11. Governments control deviant religions based on reasonable violations of freedom of religion. They create legislation, policies and programs to manage and control deviant religions. CSIS monitors doomsday cults in Canada, whose members may commit mass suicide or inflict mass harm. France has an Interministerial Mission on the Fight Against

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Sects and Cults. Some nations control in ways that are controversial. Under Russia’s antiextremism law, religious minorities (e.g. Muslim) have been persecuted with criminal charges, monetary fines and forcible detention.

12. The “deviance dance” is evident is resistance to the social typing of certain religions as deviant. Religious groups defend themselves in court, hire public relations firms to represent them in the public eye, and change their practices or policies to eliminate questionable practices. Groups are able to do impression management by using media to frame their image in a different way.

13. Resistance to the social typing of certain religions as deviant is also evident in academia, where the traditional typology that distinguishes between churches, sects, and cults is questioned. a. Different groups use the word “cult” in varying ways; for example, counter-cult groups use the word to refer to any group that does not follow a fundamentalist Christian interpretation of the Bible. b. All the world’s major religions today initially began as “cults”—a small group of highly committed members, led by a charismatic leader, and following an oppositional doctrine. c. At some time in history and in some places, every religious belief system has been socially typed as deviant and made subject to social control (e.g. Soviet Union). d. Because of the problems with the traditional typology, many academics prefer terms such as “ideological groups” or “new religious movements”.

14. Religion also acts as a social typer of deviance. At an individual level, each person’s religious beliefs provide a moral code governing what is acceptable and unacceptable. At a societal level, religious belief systems may influence political belief systems, such that the boundaries between religious and political belief systems become blurred. a. The witch persecutions illustrate the blurring of religious and political boundaries. Over a period of hundreds of years, the Christian church was directly or indirectly responsible for the “witch hunts” throughout Europe, and other nations. There were regional variations in the magnitude of persecutions, and in the gender of those persecuted. It is important to note that this is not simply something that happened in the past. The United Nations has documented violence linked to accusations of witchcraft in the 21st century (United Nations, 2018). Children abandoned in the Democratic Republic of the Congo because they are believed to be witches, women in Papua New Guinea, or other countries around the world. The common patterns are people who lack power “women, children, the elderly, persons with disabilities, and specific conditions like albinism” (United Nations, 2018, p3). b. As part of colonization, governments enforced the social control of Indigenous Peoples through the policies and programs supported and often managed by Christian groups throughout North America. An integral part of this process was eradicating Indigenous religious and spiritual beliefs and practices and replacing them with Christian beliefs and practices (Government of Canada, 2017). Every aspect of Indigenous culture was perceived as deviant and in need of elimination. The residential schools created were designed to eradicate all Indigenous culture from the children, in an attempt to fully assimilate them. Parental consent was not necessary because legislation made all

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Indigenous persons wards of the state. Any communities that refused were threatened with loss of funding or incarceration. c. Laws were created to prohibit Indigenous religious and spiritual practices, including important cultural ceremonies that surrounded major life events like marriages, births and deaths. It was not until 2008 that the Government of Canada offered a formal apology for the intergenerational trauma that has been caused by residential schooling and other related practices. d. The Victorian child-savers movement acted as a moral entrepreneur, identifying various social ills (e.g. child abuse/neglect; alcoholism; poverty) and acting to solve them.

Middle-class Protestant norms and values were perceived as the basis of the solution to social problems. Members of the lower-class were defined as inherently immoral (otherwise they wouldn’t be lower-class), and it was the role of the middle-class to save lower-class children from the immorality they were surrounded by.

15. As components of religious beliefs were incorporated into the political realm, social control shifted to legislation and other forms of government policy. In the present day, religious and political belief systems continue to overlap in some ways and continue to have power as a social typer of deviance.

16. Just as religious belief systems make claims to “truth”, so do scientific belief systems. There are two categories. First, there are claims about the nature of reality, the way the world works. Second, there are ethical and moral claims embedded in the scientific belief system.

17. In contemporary Canadian society, scientific claims to truth are granted greater legitimacy that religious belief systems.

18. Science and deviance are related to deviance in the same ways religion is. Science as deviant refers to acts committed within science, or an entire discipline may be deviantized for not being an authentic science, but rather a pseudoscience.

19. Deviant acts that occur within science are labelled scientific misconduct. Scientific misconduct includes fabrication, falsification, ethical violations, and more. Scientific misconduct has been found in the social sciences, health services, and human services.

However, it is most commonly associated with biomedical fields; it is not necessarily more common in these fields, but is more likely to be detected due to greater interest and greater funding.

20. There are debates over how extensive the problem of scientific misconduct is. Bad apple theory proposes that these actions are rare in the scientific community; there are a few “bad apples” in an occupational field. However, iceberg theory proposes that these behaviours are far more frequent than many people believe; those who are caught are just the “tip of the iceberg”, and the structure of science itself is conducive to misconduct. a. Various theories have been used to examine why scientific misconduct happens.

Techniques of neutralization (Sykes & Matza, 1957), Merton’s strain theory, or Gottfredson & Hirschi’s self-control theory have all been applied to understanding this further.

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21. The corporatization of science contributes to increasing scientific misconduct. Most clinical drug research is now conducted by contracted, for-profit research centres rather than by university researchers (i.e. post-academic science); corporately funded research is far more likely to reveal positive research results than is publicly-funded research. a. Pinto (2015) argues that this corporatization of science “has encouraged a production of ignorance” (p. 294). Research is directed by money, the only topics investigated are those with funding. This allows gaps, but also opens up knowledge building to be directed by powerful groups.

22. Misconduct can be controlled formally and informally. a. Gossip is one of the most common responses, where professional character and aptitude is questioned. b. It could be met with professional sanctions or removal from funding or research bodies.

Articles can be retracted and some face criminal persecution.

23. It has been argued that preventative rather than retroactive control measures work better.

Robert Merton (1973) described the normative structure of science: communism (scientific knowledge is to be shared by all); skepticism (all ideas are subjected to rigorous scrutiny); disinterestedness (scientific work is done in the name of truth rather than for any vested interests); and universalism (knowledge is free from any biases based on characteristics such as race, gender, or religion). He claimed that because of this structure, scientific misconduct would be rare.

24. In the early 1970s, it became increasingly clear that the normative structure of science was not sufficient to prevent acts of misconduct, and that science could not be self-regulating.

From 1975 to 1990, the institutional logic became one of coercive measures to both punish and prevent misconduct. Since 1990, a population prevention approach has emerged, which emphasizes promoting research integrity.

25. Deviant sciences are those that have their entire belief system and/or technologies questioned and socially typed as deviant (e.g. astrology). Debates over what is pseudoscience continue.

(E.g. Naturopathy or specific forms of therapy such as memory retrieval). The media reinforces pseudoscience and misinformation because it is sensational and generates attention. a. Some pseudoscience may eventually become accepted science. Some argue that the inherently conservative nature of science results in new sciences sometimes being labelled “deviant”, but later becoming fully accepted (e.g. radio astronomy).

26. While sometimes subjected to the social typing process itself, science also steers the social typing process. The power of science in contemporary society results in the claims to truth made by scientists immediately being granted legitimacy in the public eye; that is people believe what scientists say, simply because it is scientists that are saying it. a. Historically, the claims made by scientists granted legitimacy to the European colonization. The rise of scientific thought coincided with the practice of colonization and the two reinforced one another. Science is “a political act and has been used to the benefit of the dominant culture by modelling the core intellectual practices of colonization:

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defining terms, naming, categorizing and hierarchizing, ‘disciplining,’ and, ultimately, assigning value” (Louie et al., cited in Simmons, 2020) b. The scientific theory known as social Darwinism proposed that societies evolve over time, from “primitive” to “civilized”. Thus, the colonization of “primitive” cultures by “civilized” cultures was justified as a belief that colonized cultures would evolve more rapidly; socially typing elements of those cultures as “deviant” and making them subject to social control was “for their own good”. c. Social Darwinism was later popularized in the science of eugenics, and the eugenics movement. Efforts by doctors, governments, and social organizations sought to increase reproduction among society’s “fittest” and decrease reproduction among society’s “unfit” (e.g. criminals; the poor; people with low IQs; promiscuous women). d. Involuntary sterilization of “mental defectives” occurred in Canada, the United States, and Britain. Eugenics reached its apex in the genocidal acts of the Nazis during World War II. 27. In contemporary society, science has taken an active role in labelling through a medical lens.

Examples of deviance from smoking to body size to sexuality have all come under the medal lens. The medicalization of life is an active area of discourse in sociology today. Concerns about whether social characteristics are being medialized are raised. Critics draw attention to the dangers of labelling certain biological characteristics as superior or inferior, desirable or undesirable. a. New eugenics practices are argued to be happening through genetic testing and the human genome project. Prenatal genetic counselling is a practice questioned by Ashbury (2015). b. International controls have been placed through the United Nations to control and monitor science and research of genetics. A scientist in China (2018) was sentenced to three years in prison for illegal medical practices for creating three genetically modified children.

TEACHING SUGGESTIONS FOR ACTIVE LEARNING 1. The Ask Yourself questions and Exercise Your Mind boxes located throughout the chapter can be used as discussion points in class, or as another form of learning activity.

2. Have students watch the CrashCourse video (see Video Suggestions) and/or read the article Sociology of Religion (see News Article Suggestions) in order to fully understand how we discuss and analyze religion from a sociology lens. This will help keep students centred in academic conversation while navigating this chapter’s material.

3. Philip Zimbardo wrote a book called “The Lucifer Effect” in 2007. Following that book, he went on to do a TedTalk about it and also a number of interviews, which call all be found on YouTube (a recent one in 2019). His theory asks “why do good people do bad things” and he offers some really interesting connections for both the religious and the scientific discussions in this chapter. Zimbardo discusses structure and agency through his work, referencing ‘bad apples’ vs ‘bad barrels’ vs ‘bad barrel makers’. It is a very engaging topic for students.

Trigger warnings for some very powerful images in his TedTalk.

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4. After lecturing on the traditional typology that distinguishes between churches, sects, and cults, but before lecturing on the limitations of that traditional typology, show the video The Heaven’s Gate Cult: The Thin Line Between Faith and Reason (see reference under “Video Suggestions”). Although the video emphasizes the mass suicide of cult members in 1997, it also features a debate: a. between various “experts” about the differences between “cults” and “churches”. This debate smoothly leads into lecture material on the limitations of the traditional typology.

5. Lead students in a discussion and reflection on cheating in school. Have students review research on how many students cheat and why. The International Centre for Academic Integrity (see “Website Suggestions”) has research with statistics about rates of cheating.

There are countless articles online about why students cheat as well. This can be a very power discussion that opens the door to recognizing the pressure students face, but also the impact of cheating, plagiarism, etc.

6. Have students read the article about Muslim Feminism (see reference under “News Article Suggestions”). This article speaks of the relationship between academia, ethnicity and religion. It weaves in conversations around structural and institutional biases that continue to exist today. Lead students through an exercise (spoken, written, reflective) that helps them unpack their own biases and pair with research or social experience that helps them see this process.

7. Assign one group of students to find as many scientific claims to “truth” being expressed via the media as possible within a one-week period. Students may choose to focus on newspaper, magazines, or television. A second activity can search for the social typing of deviance within those claims. a. Assign a second group of students to do the same with religious claims to “truth”; this exercise will help illustrate the greater power of scientific claims in contemporary society.

8. Create an assignment or a discussion in class to explore the information and debates around genetic science. They could examine the United Nations material and the Human Genome Project websites to learn more about this. There are several videos on YouTube that discuss the ethics of genetic science. Encourage students to question which traits would become vulnerable, examining both scientific and religious belief systems as part of the reflection.

VIDEO SUGGESTIONS ❖ ABC News (1997). The Heaven’s Gate Cult: The Thin Line Between Faith and Reason.

Distributed by Films for the Humanities and Sciences. ❖ Thomson, N. (Director). (2007). Children of God: Lost and Found. World of Wonder and HBO. ❖ Ridberg, R., & Jhally, S. (Producers). (2006). Big Bucks, Big Pharma: Marketing Disease and Pushing Drugs. Media Education Foundation.

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❖ Ewing, H., & Grade, R. (Directors). (2006). Jesus Camp. Vimeo or YouTube. ❖ CrashCourse. (2018). Religion: Crash Course Sociology # 39. YouTube.

WEBSITE SUGGESTIONS ❖ http://www.icsahome.com This is the website of the International Cultic Studies Association, an organization within the anti-cult movement. It includes information and resources on a wide range of topics. Of interest is their “Study Guides”, which includes a “Cults101” collection and a “Pseudoscience” collection. ❖ http://thefamilyinternational.org This is the website for “The Family” (i.e. “Children of God”). ❖ http://www.wherearethechildren.ca/en This is an outstanding online resource on residential schooling. It includes an interactive history (featuring images, audio clips, and video clips), a map and timeline, a bookcase of recommended readings, a 3D tour of Mohawk Institute Residential School, and a series of video interviews with former residential school students. ❖ https://www.academicintegrity.org/ The International Centre for Academic Integrity. This website is focused on discussing and raising awareness around Academic Integrity. ❖ http://eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/list3.pl This is the multiple award-winning site of The (American) Eugenics Archive, illustrating the history, foundations, and consequences of the eugenics movement. A Canadian website (http://eugenicsarchive.ca) is also in production.

NEWS ARTICLE SUGGESTIONS ❖ Crossman, A. (2019). Sociology of Religion. ThoughtCo. Students often struggle with the practice of thinking about and researching religion as sociology scholars. It is a challenging area to stay objective and aware of personal values and beliefs. This article outlines the goals and offers reminders about opinion. ❖ Hayward, J. (2020). Special Prosecutor Closes Investigation into B.C. Polygamist Community. The Canadian Press.

This article introduces students to a family in Bountiful BC that has been under investigations and public scrutiny for decades due to their unconventional polygamist life and religious practices.

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❖ Belluz, J. (2019). Research Fraud Catalyzed the Anti-Vaccination Movement. Let’s Not Repeat History. Vox. This article outlines the research that connected vaccines to autism. This perfect example of the impact of academic misconduct allows students to see the rippling side affects that led to the anti-vaxx movement of today. ❖ Spratley, D. (2018). Canadian Court Ponders Morality in Athlete Sponsorship Agreement.

DLA Piper.

This article discusses ‘morality clauses’ and whether employers, and in the case of athletes, corporate sponsors, can include a clause around expected image and behaviour. This could be tied into discussions around religion, ideology and moral entrepreneurs and social control. ❖ Goujard, C. (2018). Her Professor Said Islam and Feminism Weren’t Compatible. She proved her wrong. Canada’s National Observer.

APPLY WHAT YOU KNOW 1. Have students plan an immersive trip, learning and experiencing Indigenous culture. There are countless websites that offer educational, cultural trips to educate travellers about Indigenous heritage and history. Most Canadian and likely some self-identifying Indigenous students will not have done travel like this with any depth, so there is a lot to learn. a. Have students dig into the various opportunities to learn more about the past, but also the current life, cultural and religious/spiritual practices. b. Provide students the parameters that you would like included that fit into this chapter, but also intersect with many other themes in this text. c. Localize the project to help students learn more about the history of your local space. d. Include an education component, where they share what they have learned with their peers or even a wider community. e. If possible, have students attend or observe a ceremony of a local Indigenous community and then research the meaning behind it f. Invite speakers into your classroom to share their knowledge and experience with your students g. Discuss the role that powerful moral entrepreneurs have had in the attempted cultural genocide of Indigenous peoples in Canada, including the role played by academia and education. Consider why this happened and how it was maintained. (for example, why are so many of our Canadian universities on traditional lands and how did that happen?) h. Remember to encourage your students to focus on positive celebration of these cultures as well as recognition of the past. i. Students could combine this assignment with a Coursera course titled “Indigenous Canada” that was created by the University of Alberta.

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Chapter 10: The “Deviance Dance” Continues LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, students should be able to: 10.1 Describe how more objective and more subjective approaches to studying deviance have been reflected in the chapters in this text.

10.2 Describe how the notion of the social typing process has been reflected in the topics explored in this text.

10.3 Explain how the importance of power has been addressed in the chapters in this text.

10.4 Explain how the concept of the “deviance dance” has been integrated into the topics explored in this text.

10.5 Cite examples of human rights legislation, and explain how these documents can determine when it is and is not appropriate to attach a deviant label to people, behaviours, or characteristics.

LECTURE OUTLINE 1. The purpose of this chapter is to reflect on the main themes that have been discussed throughout the textbook.

2. One of the themes that is present in the textbook is the notion of the objective- subjective continuum. For each of the substantive topics in the chapter, both more objective and more subjective approaches have been addressed.

3. The objective scholars focusing more on the act argue that deviance exists a priori to the analysis and can be seen through specific characteristics. Some examples of more objectivist interests include: a. administrative approaches to media studies (e.g. effects of media violence) b. causes of youth crime/gangs, substance use, obesity and anorexia, scientific misconduct c. scientific standards of the “ideal” body d. causes of and treatments for mental illness 4. Subjective deviance scholars focus on the process and the construction of deviance. Power is central to this process. Some examples of more subjectivist interests include: a. the influence of the structure of media ownership on content b. moral panics about youth crime c. what modified bodies tell us about society d. social standards of the “ideal” body

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5. Combining the results of both the more objective and more subjective research provides us with the most comprehensive understanding of deviance, wherein we learn something about the deviant act (why, when, and how it occurs) and the processes by which that act has come to be perceived and treated as deviant. a. In the chapter on media and deviance (Chapter 4), we saw that contemporary research on media is both objective (analyzing the effects of media consumption on attitudes and behaviours) and subjective (exploring how the media socially constructs events, issues, and identities, and how those constructions may be affected by changing structures of media ownership). b. In the chapter on sexuality (Chapter 5), a historical context surrounded part of our exploration. We examined objective ideas around norms and their impact on sexuality, while also recognizing the specific cultural processes that impacted the labels and controls based on the dominant moral codes of the time.

6. The social typing process, social control, and power were explored throughout this book.

The five moral entrepreneur groups have institutionalized power that allows them to influence the dominant moral codes around deviance. Some examples include: a. What “deviant” sexuality is in different cultures, and the control of sexuality by law, media, etc. b. Traditional typology of religions, and the control of “deviant” religions by anti-cult groups, governments, etc. c. Standards for “too fat” and “too thin”, and the control of bodies through medicine, media, etc. d. The social typing of behaviour as mental illness and the process medicalization in the power exerted by experts in science as social typers of deviance. e. The labels of “at risk” youth, and their control through law and social programs.

7. The “deviance dance” is a theme carried through the textbook. Differing points of view, debate, and resistance were evident. a. In Chapter 4 on media, we see Indigenous-produced media as a key component of decolonization and hashtag activism (e.g., #ChangeRedMen, #BlackLivesMatter) as an important tool for marginalized groups (Clark, 2014; Mclean et al., 2017). b. In Chapter 5 on sexuality, we see debates over various aspects of sexuality, such as how often is “too often,” whether exotic dancers are victims of violence in a patriarchal society versus being legitimate workers, the purported harms caused by pornography, and social policies governing prostitution. c. In chapter 8 looking at mental disorders, the dance is clear in the debates around what is included in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic of Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), some going so far as to argue the entire concept of mental illness is a myth (Szasz, 1994).

8. Within the discourse and research around deviance, scholars search for a common way of determining what is deviant. Is it inherent or fully constructed? What is this based on? Who decides? What standards could be used to determine what is ‘deviant’ moving forward? The textbook has emphasized historical and cultural variations in perceptions of “deviance”. This may lead some people to question whether the concept of deviance is endlessly relativistic—

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whether “anything goes”. Some deviance specialists suggest that human rights legislation and policy is a place where some universal standards governing the social construction of deviance can be found.

9. Human rights policy is characterized by several themes. a. Human dignity – the right to be treated with respect: Based on this theme, the eugenics movement, the practices implemented during European colonization, and residential schooling are all deviant. However, consensual sexual acts between adults or bodies outside the ‘normal’ standards, would not be. b. Freedom from discrimination – the prohibition of discrimination based on group membership. Those marginalized because of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, etc. would no longer be considered deviant, but the acts that socially exclude and dehumanize would be deviant. Discrimination in employment, access to resources, unequal protection through law, etc. c. Security of person and property - the universal right to physical, mental, and social health. Thus, the failure to provide the necessary means for achieving health for any group is seen as unacceptable. Based on this theme, crime, the Holocaust, involuntary sterilization of “mental defectives”, residential schooling, and the witch persecutions are all “deviant”.

10. Although human rights policy can serve as a starting point for standards in the social construction of deviance, social processes and power also influence the creation and implementation of human rights policy. Someone’s human rights are only protected until there is a threat to public order, public health, or other people’s human rights. In any specific instance, there may be different points of view on whether someone’s human rights are being violated and if so, whether it is a reasonable and legitimate violation in a democratic country (e.g. hate crime legislation).

TEACHING SUGGESTIONS FOR ACTIVE LEARNING 1. The Ask Yourself and Exercise Your Mind questions located throughout the chapter can be used as discussion points in class, or as short or expanded assignments done as individuals or in groups.

2. After briefly pointing out the themes present throughout the textbook, instructors may want students to search for examples of those themes. Divide students into groups, and assign each group to do one segment of that search. Each group could be assigned a specific chapter, and search for illustrations of each of the themes within that chapter. Alternatively, each group could be assigned a theme, and then have to look through all of the chapters for illustrations of that theme.

3. “Witness” is an international organization that acts as a human rights watchdog. Members of this organization use visible and hidden cameras to document people’s experiences surrounding human rights, and violations of human rights. Video clips can be viewed on the organization’s website. Instructors may want to show some of these video clips in class,

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particularly since the clips that are available online are usually related to a very current issue or event. The textbook also has several other websites mentioned that could work such as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch. Below in Website suggestions is a link to PEN, another international organization that could be examined.

4. An interesting connection to this last chapter is an analysis of activists and activism and how they relate to deviance. Students often take for granted the heroes of social movements such as Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, etc. They forget that at the time considerable controversy surrounds these people and their role in challenging status quo. Past terms like treason and heresy, more contemporary labels such as dissent, activism, whistleblower, … terrorist?? all of these labels are part of our deviance material and the dances of perspective. You could tie in Merton’s idea of ‘rebellion’ to this chapter on human rights and the dance between conformity and change or have students discuss the similarities and difference between activism and terrorism. This could be a conversation, integrated into lecture, or done through an assignment.

5. There are important discussions in equity, diversity, and inclusion work (EDI) around the significance of labels, and language. Leading students in an exploration around person-first, identity-first and the tertiary deviance where labels and deviance are challenged completely (e.g. Neurodiversity) is a powerful and important part of this work. Listening to groups to hear from their perspective what the right language and conversation is will help students recognize the ongoing work being done all the time in gender, race, culture, ability, LGBTQIA2+, etc.

6. Instructors can revisit a specific issue or topic from earlier in the course (e.g. the list of sexual offenses in the Canadian Criminal Code), or select another topic of their own interest (e.g. the experiences of transgendered people; current Aboriginal issues) and have students reflect on that topic within the context of either (a) the themes carried through the textbook, or (b) the notion of “human rights”. The videos listed under “Video Suggestions” are some sources for this type of analysis and class discussion.

VIDEO SUGGESTIONS ❖ Forster, M. (Director) (2007). The Kite Runner. DreamWorks Paramount Vantage. ❖ Collot, N. (Director & Writer). (2006). The Tobacco Conspiracy. Kuiv Productions and National Film Board of Canada. ❖ Legend, J., Pitt. B., Simmons, R. (Producers), Jarecki, E. (Director & Writer), & St. John, C. (Writer). (2012). The House I Live In. Charlotte Street Films, BBC, ITVS, ZDF/ARTE. ❖ France, D. (2020). Welcome to Chechnya. HBO Documentaries. ❖ Monroe, D. (2019). Black14. YouTube.

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❖ Newnham, N. (2020). Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution. Netflix. ❖ Montgomery, P. (2012). #ReGeneration. Media Education Foundation.

WEBSITE SUGGESTIONS ❖ www.fraserinstitute.ca This is an independent public policy organization based in Vancouver which is well known for its conservative positions on the family and other social institutions. ❖ http://www.witness.org This is the website of “Witness”, an international human rights watchdog that uses hidden cameras to document human rights violations. The site contains video clips that can be viewed online. ❖ http://www.fifdh.org This is the website for the annual International Film Festival on Human Rights. The website includes a list of all the films presented at the most recent festival. Films focus on a variety of human rights issues and topics. ❖ https://pen-international.org/ PEN International is an organization that supports freedom of thought and speech. It is an organization that supports and attempts to protect writers around the world as they are socially sanctioned for speaking their truth against powerful groups.

NEWS ARTICLE SUGGESTIONS ❖ Hodes, C. (2020). Do you Have a Right to Protest? The Coronavirus’ Impact on Freedom of Assembly. The Conversation: Canada.

This article discusses the lockdown protests that happened in Canada during COVID-19. It is a good opportunity to think about where one’s rights begin and end. ❖ Schmick, M. (2020). Today’s Troublemakers May be Tomorrow’s Heroes: A Lesson from the Life of John Lewis. StarbTribune.

This article outlines some of the realities of being an activist, a rebel by looking at the experience of John Lewis at the time of his death. ❖ Camfield, D. (2015). The Politics of Human Rights. Socialist Project: The Bullet.

This website outlines some theoretical or philosophical reasons that human rights are not universally determined and could be connected into the idea of the deviance dance. ❖ Pearson, E., & Chappell, L. (2019). 5 Human Rights Issues that Defined 2019. The Conversation: Canada.

This article written from a legal standpoint outlines 5 major social issues that show really interesting connections to the role of power, the ways that human rights could connect into labels and the idea of deviance being re-examined.

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APPLY WHAT YOU KNOW The Companion Website to accompany Deviance, Conformity and Social Control in Canada is a student resource that includes chapter quizzes, Deviance in Print (a list of key text resources), Deviance at the Movies (a list of recommended videos), links to recommended articles, and a series of short video/audio clips to accompany the textbook.

Chapter 10 Video Clip: “Erin Andrews Breaks Down in Court Talking About Her Stalker’s Video” (6:06 minutes) In 2008, stalker Michael Barret filmed prominent American sportscaster Erin Andrews in her room at the Nashville Marriot Hotel where she was staying. He obtained the footage using his cellphone and after tampering with the peephole on the door to her room. By his own admission, he waited until he heard her shower end and filmed her once she appeared naked. His plan was to sell the footage as a means to make a large sum of money. When this plan failed, he posted the footage online for free.

This film clip incorporates film footage of Andrews, as she gives testimony in court, alongside news coverage of her ordeal. The clip reviews several issues including the criminal act of stalking, concerns around rights to privacy (and the responsibility of corporations—in this case a global hotel chain—in maintaining client privacy), and the ease with which an individual can post material online, which then may go ‘viral.’ This clip picks up the case in 2016 when Andrews sues both Barret and the Marriot Hotel for $75 million. By this time, Barrett has already served prison time for his crime.

The film clip reveals that Barret had telephoned the front desk from the house phone in the Marriot’s restaurant and simply asked to be connected to Andrews’ room. The hotel’s telephone system—which the news presenters characterize as “archaic”— immediately displayed Andrews’ room number on the phone from which Barret was calling. We are told how Barret already had a plan in place to film Andrews, so once he knew her location he went to her room and tampered with the peephole. He discovered also that the room next to hers was empty, so he went to the front desk and booked it. Then, he simply waited for his opportunity.

In court, Andrews discusses her distress not only at the viral footage, but also with the Marriot Hotel for using a telephone system that displays clients’ room numbers on the phone displays of other users. She indicates that the hotel chain was partly responsible for Barret’s actions as it allowed him to locate her easily. She proposes that the Marriot did not protect its client’s privacy as it should have done. Moreover, because of the viral status of the images, she states that she has experienced ongoing anxiety, anguish, grief, anger and humiliation.

The news presenters then discuss the nature of her lawsuit against both Barrett and the hotel chain. They identify that she could not sue for damages on the basis of an inability to pursue her career or lost earnings, as she has had great professional success. Rather, her lawsuit rested instead on emotional damages: the fact that since this event, she has experienced a great deal of emotional upheaval and distress. The persistence of the nude footage of her on the Internet has compounded her negative emotional state.

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1. Students are directed to this video clip at the end of Chapter 10 in the textbook, and are asked the following questions: a. Which end of the objective-subjective continuum might deviance specialists draw more heavily upon to examine this case? Explain why. b. Although not shown in this clip, the court went on to apply a $55 million award in Andrews’ favour (split between the Marriot hotel and Michael Barrett). What kind of social control measure against the hotel and Barrett does this financial penalty represent? c. Electronic communication and associated devices are dominant features of North American society. As we saw from the film clip, Andrews is devastated by the persistent online presence of Barrett’s film footage of her. To what extent do you think videosharing platforms and websites should be held accountable for failing to remove illegally obtained content? In a world that is dominated by the sharing of information, what might be some of the problems around ensuring personal privacy?

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