Social Control and Deviance Overview

Social Control and Deviance

• Social behavior is controlled to maintain order.
• Re-establishing order occurs after rules are broken.
• Violations of norms result in social sanctions.
• Time-tested rules make society efficient and harmonious.
• Violating rules incurs punishments.
• Following rules promotes rewarding interactions.
• Violating rules may result in supernatural punishments.
• Laws are enforced by societal machinery.
• Rewards include praise, promotions, and salary raises.
• Society has prevalent social goals.
• Deviance is nonconforming behavior.
• Deviance violates norms (folkways, mores, or laws).
• Deviance depends on the norm's context, societal conditions, and public response.

Forms of Deviance

• Innovation: using improper methods to achieve goals.
• Ritualism: strictly following norms, forsaking the reason behind them.
• Retreatism: trying to escape social goals when unable to meet them.
• Rebellion: frustration over societal norms.

Organization of Society - Groups

• A group is a unit of people with regular interactions who identify as a unit.
• Groups share some sense of aligned identity, for example, passengers on a bus, or children playing in the park.
• Groups are categorized by number, common interests, purposes, and interaction levels.
• In-group: a group a person belongs to and feels is an integral part of their identity.
• Out-group: a group a person is not a member of, and may even compete with.

Networks

• Networks involve macro-, meso-, and micro-level interactions at various societal scales.
• Societies are interconnected.

Kinship

• Kinship refers to social relations between individuals in a society.
• Descent refers to individuals' origins and family background (nationality).
• Lineage is the line through which one's ancestry is traced.
• Unilineal descent is traced through a single line of ancestors.
• Kinship based on blood is consanguineal kinship (kadugo).
• Kinship based on marriage is affinal kinship.
• Fictive kinship is kinship through ritual (example, compadrazgo in Catholicism).

Marriage

• Exogamy (out-marriage): spouses outside one's clan.
• Endogamy (compulsory marriage): spouses within one's clan.
• Monogamy: one spouse at a time.
• Polygamy: multiple spouses.
• Arranged marriage: parents arrange marriage for their children.
• Exchange marriage: reciprocal exchange of spouses between groups or tribes.
• Diplomatic marriage: marriages for political gain.

Post-Marital Residence Rules

• Patrilocal residence: couple lives with the husband's family.
• Matrilocal residence: couple lives with the wife's family.
• Neolocal residence: the couple lives independently of either family.
• Avuncolocal residence: the couple lives with the maternal uncle of the groom.

Family Structures

• De facto separation: separation outside the court.
• Nuclear family: married couple and their biological or adopted children.
• Extended families: two or more nuclear families in one household.
• Blended families: parents and their children from previous relationships.
• Conditionally separated family: family member is separated from the rest due to work (military, etc).
• Transnational family: family living in more than one country.

Political Structures

• Bands: simplest political systems, small groups of self-sufficient hunters.
• Tribes: larger political organizations, integrated by culture and language, rather than a centralised family, or a kinship.
• Chiefdoms: political units composed of communities ruled by a permanent chief from an elite family.
• States: formal political organizations with sovereignty over a defined territory.

Types of Authority

• Traditional authority: legitimacy stemming from established customs.
• Charismatic authority: authority based on individual charisma.
• Rational-legal authority: authority derived from formal, legitimate laws.

Government

• Government: institutions managing societal rules and relations.
• Types of Governments: (Examples)
  • Absolute Monarchy: Monarch has absolute power
  • Constitutional Monarchy: Monarch's power is limited by a constitution.
  • Democracy: Citizens choose representatives through votes.
  • Authoritarianism: power centralised to curtail the political plurality.
  • Totalitarianism: Government controls all aspects of citizens' lives.