Summary Of Outsiders By Howard Becker

Howard Becker is widely known for his major contributions to the sociology of deviance and is one of the key proponents of the labelling theory. In Becker’s book ‘Outsiders’ the importance of this particular theory is made clear from the outset in that Becker attributes the creation of deviance to it, “social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labelling them as outsiders” (Becker, 1963, pp.9). This argument is based on the idea that deviance is socially constructed is, it emphasizes the importance of shared understandings and the process of social interaction. It is through understanding this process that Becker uncovers why certain people come to

be labelled deviants and others do not.

Throughout the book Becker draws on the notion of a ‘deviant career’ , he wanted to develop this sequential model as a way of explaining how people come to be a part of deviant subcultures. The first step in the sequence is the “commission of a non-conforming act” (Becker, 1963, pp 25), from this he argues that the process of social learning leads the individual to participate in the deviant subculture in which one kind of deviance often leads to others.

The final step in the deviant career is “movement into an organized deviant group” ( Becker, pp 37). This notion of a ‘deviant career’ is legitimized through Becker’s study on becoming a marihuana user. In terms of the methodology, he used analytic induction , “Analytic induction involves a process of generating and then testing hypotheses against each successive case or instance of the phenomenon” (Denzin, 2007). In this particular case the hypothesis being tested against 50 marihuana users was about the “genesis of marihuana use for pleasure” ( Becker, pp.45). Despite writing at a time where attitudes towards and understandings of marihuana use were relatively conservative, Becker was able to draw major conclusions from his research that supported his hypothesis. In line with concept of the ‘deviant career’, Becker identifies three necessary steps to becoming a marihuana user: learning the technique, learning to perceive the effects and learning to enjoy the effects. If marihuana use

is to persist, all three social processes must be present. Becker also recognizes the importance of social controls in preventing such behaviour, “the extent of an individual’s use of marihuana is at least partly dependent on the degree to which conventional social controls fail to prevent his engaging in the activity” (Becker, 1955, pp.43). The means through which marihuana use is controlled lie within the law, attitudes of non-users and conventional notions of morality, all of which become less important as usage increases. Whilst Becker does consider additional causal factors such as these which influence the extent of marihuana use, some argue he “does not give careful consideration to rival factors that may have distorted or, in fact caused his observed causal relationship” (Denzin, 1989).