Hats Off To Deviance Every subculture has different levels of punishment severity when it comes to norms and folkways. Through my experience of breaking a folkway I believed to be insignificant, I realized that a subculture I am a part of judges certain behaviors that I would consider only slightly abnormal as extremely unacceptable. My goal for this assignment was to break a social norm that would not cause uproar from the people around me, so I endeavored to wear a comedic hat throughout one school day. Unknown to me at the time, this would become an ordeal that, in my opinion, was blown entirely out of proportion. As I walked into the school building wearing my hat, I felt slightly self-conscious. However, this did not last long because as I came in sight of a teacher, I was immediately ordered to remove my hat. Shocked, I …show more content…
Two of my other teachers also prohibited me to wear my hat; the only logical thought process I heard was that other students would see my hat, and they would also want to wear hats. However, I do not see a problem with everyone wearing a hat. Only one of my teachers allowed me to wear the hat in class, and I observed that, after a few initial laughs, class went completely normal. My teacher agreed. At lunch, I was able to wear my hat, and it was a topic of conversation for my friends. They asked me why I was wearing my hat, and once I explained my situation, there seemed to be an air of general acceptance from the group. I felt a little out of place, but we moved on to discussing other topics, and the hat seemed to be forgotten. I experienced a few strange glances and occasional laughs from other students, but no one other than my friends asked me outright about the hat. At first, the sense of being judged by others caused me discomfort, but this did not bother me once I had gained acceptance from my
Deviance is any behavior, belief, or condition that violates significant social norms in the society or group in which it occurs (Kendall, 2012). Our experiment will study the behavioral deviance of a social norm. Sociologists use symbolic interactionism to study face-to-face interactions. We are expected to follow these certain unwritten rules of behavior telling us the way that we should act in certain situations. The social norm or folkway I chose to break was that of invading an individual’s personal space. See Figure 1.0 showing the proximity generally utilized by Americans, according to Edward T.Hall. Personal space is the region surrounding a person, approximately 18 inches, which they regard as psychologically theirs. People value their personal space, and feel discomfort, anger, or anxiety when their personal space is encroached (Personal space, n.d.). We walked around to find the best scenario and individuals to interject our teammate in purposefully invading their comfort zone.
Sociologists suggest deviance is a violation of any societal norm. Yet some have suggested deviance is a socially outmoded concept based on a Durkheim’s model of social solidarity. Therefore suggesting now it is obsolete, there is no longer a use for it in a (post) modern progressive and diverse society like Australia. According to Roach Anleu (2004) Colin Sumner was one such claimant. Sumner suggested that the sociological concept of deviance and any coherent theoretical development stagnated in mid 1970s, as no agreement on how deviance should be set never happened, therefore there was never an answer to the question, “deviant from what”? Secondly, Sumner states there is no explanation for why deviance is the chosen subject of research, instead of the norms that specify deviance. He believed it only made sense to examine deviance within the framework of social disapproval. Sumner also believed the relationships between deviance, crime, and difference to be unclear. Lastly he thought that the search for a general concept to encompass such a assorted range of activities, problems and situations was misguided because there can be no behavioural unity for such a diverse range of practices. Sumner (1994) suggested that the focus should analysis how deviant categories are constructed and managed by the power relationships that are continually changing. (Sumner 1994), (Roach Anleu 2014) Roach Anleu (2014) describe norms as reflecting some level of consensus and can be laws, rules, regulations, standards, or unspoken expectations. However, within large communities, there can be individuals, and groups whose behaviour is perceived as deviant according to the accepted norms. Those individuals and or groups may not necessarily be consider...
We live our lives following a set of steps and the majority of the time we do not even notice we doing such things. We have learn through society how to dress, how to eat, what to do and when to do it. The problem is that, when one these things are not the way they are supposed to be, we immediately noticed there is something wrong. We understand that the person is not doing what is “right” in other word, that person is breaking a social norm. For the purpose of this paper, the social norm I decided to break was wearing my clothes the right way. In order to break the norm, I decided to wear my clothes inside out. The idea to wear my clothes inside out came about as a result of one my roommates accidently wearing her gym clothes inside out in a couple of occasions when we went to the gym. At least twice my roommate wore her gym pants inside out
Social deviance is a very broad term, which describes actions or behaviors that violate social “norms.” Norms, in a simple context, are rules by which members of society are expected to conform to. When discussing the term deviance, one might talk about the failure, or people’s failures to adapt to rules established by society. Social deviance has many forms and interpretations. Deviant acts, are primarily relative to setting, because deviance in one place could be considered non-deviance in another place. Theft, violence, murder, or any kind of criminal behavior, can be considered either deviant or non-deviant. It’s up to countries, establishments, and governing bodies to determine what acts are and aren’t acceptable. For example, fighting in a boxing ring is acceptable, while fighting in a nursery home is not. Murdering someone for drugs is not acceptable, but murdering someone in an act of self-defense is. As one can conclude, all acts of deviance are be subjected to review, and accepted on the condition that it fits its highly appropriate symbolism. Acts of deviance can result in some very positive outcomes. It’s important to realize that although failing to concede to a list of rules could be detrimental, it can also improve the standard of life in some parts of the world. Even though social deviance is mainly looked down upon mostly in society, deviance is a necessity. Without deviance, there’d be little to no indication of people’s dissatisfaction and exigency for change. Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman are two primary examples of positive social deviance. Their refusal to follow the laws brought about movements that eradicated change in the nation. It’s important to note that there are positive and negative forms of deviance...
The social norm behavior violation that I engaged in was taking my dog, along with a stuffed animal dog on a walk around our neighborhood. I picked this particular social norm to violate because when walking my dog daily, many people ask to stop and pet my dog so I was curious how that would change if they saw me as well walking a stuffed animal. I also chose to violate this norm because every time I walk there are many people I encounter and I wanted to participate in something that involved many people to get a wide range of reactions.
Being an outsider is being different than everyone. Being a rebel. Being a menace to society. Being yourself and not caring about what the outside world thinks of you. You being yourself, an original person. For example, when my group of friends did not like any of the things that I did. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton is a novel based on a group of teenagers who are in a gang that call themselves “Greasers”. This group is fighting another group of people who call themselves the “Socials” Socs for short, but things take a drastic turn when murder gets involved in the equation. Ponyboy is a character in the book that is very outspoken. He is the youngest in his family and he goes through a lot during this short period of time.
The social norm we will attempt to violate would be talking loudly, singing and dancing in public places. The social norm acts as an mechanism of social control because when the norm is being broken within a group of people they would most likely show a specific reaction and response to the behavior that we would be demonstrating.
In this day and age we like to say that we thrive on being ourselves and embracing our individuality, while this may be true in my social experiment I found that more often than not we tend to keep to ourselves and follow the social norms of day to day life. Social norms are behaviors and cues most everyone learns throughout their lives. These norms teach us what is and is not acceptable. To fully understand and analyze how norms serve to regulate behavior in our social world, I decided to breach a social norm of my own.
American literature often examines people and motives. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, and in Arthur Miller’s dramatic classic, The Crucible, people and motives often depict patterns of Puritans struggling for life during a precarious time.
I chose to break a social norm by sitting/ laying on the floor of an aisle in a grocery store, engaging in deviant behavior, instead of shopping for groceries. Sitting on the floor of a grocery store is a case of deviant behavior because it goes against society by breaking the norm. Because the standard behavior of people in a grocery store is to walk and look around, with usually a basket or cart, shopping for desired items, the expected response of others would be feeling uncomfortable, awkward, and confused. Upon performing my act of social deviance, numerous people demonstrated the anticipated reaction. As people turned down the aisle, I occupied, conversations died down to whispers or stopped altogether. Of the people who questioned me on my
The 1960s and 1970s worldwide was a time of social discontent and chaos. During this time Mexico, had a period of disappearances, that is referred to as the dirty way (Ahmed, 2017). Mexican governments have not been able to provide closure to the families of the disappeared who fell victims to the drug war and narcotrafficking. Over 30,000 people are missing in Mexico and families like Lulú’s, are left hopeless due to lack of effort put in to solve these cases. This narrative is very common in Mexico, due to the lack of government intervention to help find these people who have somehow “disappeared.”
Imagine being stared at, judged, and whispered about while doing something you love. When someone is different or does something different we are often quick to judge. This is a result of society. Society has created norms that people must follow because if they do not follow the norms they will be considered deviant. A deviant person is one who breaks the norms society has created.
Social norms are the rules of behaviors that most people consider to be normal and acceptable within societies (Reynolds, Subašić, & Tindall, 2015). They guide social behaviors to be performed similarly (Reynolds et al., 2015). When a behavior is accepted and is behaved by many people, a person can think it is a correct way to act and he will be more likely to mimic that behavior. Besides, without following social norms, the fear of abnormality in groups can prevent a person from acting differently. A person might be afraid that his unlike behaviors could be seen as weird, impolite or guilty behaviors.
I also question why that rule is even in place. Why shouldn’t students be allowed to wear hats in school? No matter who you are at school you’ve probably heard the words ,“No hats in school”, or “Take off your hat”. You might think, “why can't I wear my hat?” You may even hear those words and pass it off as stupid, I would agree.
There are much bigger issues to worry about other than if a student is wearing a hat in the hallway, lunch room or gym. Other problems are bullying, drug use and cheating. Teachers go out of their way to take hats like it’s all they care about is having authority over us and controlling us. The Northeast Student Handbook states, “While the primary responsibility for appearance lies with the students and their parents, appearance disruptive to the education program will not be tolerated. When, in the judgment of the principal, a student’s appearance or mode of dress unduly disrupts the education process or constitutes a threat to health or safety, the administration may take appropriate disciplinary action and/or require modifications in the