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Deviance Sociology 170: 401 Joseph Schneider, Spring 2002, TR 11:00-12:15 pm. Office: 130 Howard Hall, Tel 271-2158 Office hours: TR 1:00-3:00 pm and by appointment Available most of the day by email: joseph.schneider@drake.edu ****************************************************************************** Course Focus, Themes Academic sociologists teach courses on deviance or deviant behavior in a variety of ways. One popular strategy is to focus on a collection of empirical or factual studies of so-called "deviant" populations/persons, almost all of whom come from North America or the United States. Such focusing on "the deviant" usually aims to paint a picture of who he or she is in terms of a range of personal, social, and cultural characteristics (e.g., background and family, emotional/psychic state; male/female, rural/urben, SES level or social class, education, and so on). And they often include socio-cultural theories or explanations of why these people did what they are said to have done and how they and others like them can be stopped from continuing to do these things. Another common topic in sociology of deviance classes is what are called "deviance processing organizations"--those agencies, private and public, that have been set up with the aim of punishing, rehabilitating, treating, caring for and holding the people who are brought to them (or, sometimes, have gone there voluntarily). These courses on deviance might ask students to read a collection of articles based on such empirical (factual, "scientific") studies and a few essays that introduce these studies that are called "theory." Although not necessarily by intention, these approaches to deviance can have a slightly voyeuristic quality. That is, they provide a "thrill" to the reader from looking at the "bad" things (often related to sex) that some people do and/or the extraordinary things that are done to them as a result, in the names of punishment and/or treatment. A widely-cited article about the sociological study of deviance that was published in the early 1970s captured this approach nicely in its title: "Nuts, Sluts, and Perverts: The Poverty of the Sociology of Deviance." There is a slightly disconcerting quality to this way of studying deviance that can remind one of being at a zoo, except that the animals being looked at are other human beings. Although there will be, I suppose, a bit of that in our course, we will take a somewhat different route into thinking about deviance by concentrating less on empirical studies of variously "bad" or allegedly "bad" people. Rather, we will spend most of our time thinking about how "badness" has been thought or conceived. We will be more concerned with what categories and assumptions are used to understand deviance and to identify deviants--those who are said to have done these things. We will want to consider how such conceptions help organize or shape the various social activities and social organizations to which they are linked. Finally, we will try to focus attention on the kind/s of persons that these ways of seeing and thinking and acting help to create--what kinds of selves or subjects "deviants" can be in the world. A critical appreciation of these questions and the related questions they lead us to, then, are the most general aims or goals of this course. Toward that end we will: (1) spend time looking back in a very general way at how sociologists have thought about and theorized deviance; (2) come to center our attention on what is called a "social constructionist," symbolic interactionist, or "labeling" way of thinking about deviance and deviants that first emerged in U.S. sociology in the 1960s. (3) We then move to gain some historical perspective, less on sociologists, per se, and more on those practices and personnel that carry the responsibility in "Western society" for dealing with "bad" people--more of a focus on practices of reaction to and control of "deviants" than on the so-called "deviants" themselves, or, even on the individuals who make these practices come alive. One illustration of this last theme is the "medicalization of deviance." That will lead us to (4) two books by Michel Foucault on modern processes of social control, one dealing particularly with the way people and processes are disciplined to serve or fit productively into "society" and (5) another book with particular attention to sexuality as a "personal" space to be observed and policed (controlled), also "in the interests of society." (6) We end the course with a look at what might be called a more "postmodern" space--the television talkshow as a site in which the "nuts, sluts, and perverts" that Liazos named take up their identities and use them, so to speak, to "fight back." They try, in some sense, to "turn the tables" on those who for so long have been calling them by these and other derogatory names. We will not be concerned particularly with "crime" except insofar as it can be used as an especially clear case of the questions of morality, disapproval, and power/domination, all implicit in the above 6 topics. The ways of thinking I hope to encourage here should be helpful to consider a great variety of situations in which processes of disapproval operate as parts of larger structures of morality. The course then is concerned more with ideas than with facts, more with theories than with data. This reflects the argument that has developed over the past twenty years or so that all facts are "theory laden," meaning facts cannot exist independent of some point of view through which they are created, given meaning or interpreted, and then used. (Ask yourself, "Where do facts come from? How are they made?" "Toward what ends?") The effect of this is to shift attention more to how badness has been "thought" and acted on than to why people do certain things that are called "bad." This is one aspect of the course that makes it fulfill the "theory-intensive" requirement for Sociology and Anthropology/Sociology majors. Department for the Study of Culture and Society Goals The faculty of the department through courses, advising, and general interaction aim to help students develop an awareness of how scholars of culture and society produce knowledge when they do their work and of the relevance of various kinds of inquiry to pursuits both within and outside the university. More specifically, through quality instruction the department courses seek to help students:
In sum, our students should develop a capability to understand their own locations in world society and culture and in human history, and they should be able to bring that sense of location or place to a critical examination of local, national and global communities. Students must be intellectually and personally stimulated by their classroom experiences and gain a sense of the moral and ethical implications of the production and application of the disciplinary knowledges they encounter. Sociology and Anthropology/Sociology Majors: Theory-Intensive Requirement and Senior Experience and Senior Capstone (SOC 199) Courses This course has been designated a "theory-intensive" course for those majoring in sociology and anthropology/sociology. It thus fulfills half of the required two theory-intensive courses that are part of those majors. This course also has been designated a "Senior Experience" course, which provides the opportunity for senior sociology and anthropology/sociology majors to complete another requirement: the 1-hour Soc 199 Senior Capstone project. If you are a senior sociology or anthropology/sociology major and you have not yet completed this SOC 199 requirement, you should already have enrolled for an additional 1 hour course called Sociology 199 Senior Experience. If you have not done so, see Schneider immediately. This is your responsibility. A time slot has been set on Tuesday afternoons from 12:30-1:20 pm in order to reserve a time in your schedules for us to meet as a small group. If you are registered for Soc 199 in conjunction with this course, please reserve that time slot for possible meetings. We will not meet every Tuesday afternoon but it is assumed that you will not schedule something else at that time. Readings There are five books to be purchased at the University Bookstore:
In addition, there are two small packets of readings available at Copycat Copies, on 25th street just south of the Varsity Theater. They are called "Supplemental Readings I" and "Supplemental Readings II" for Sociology 170 Deviance. See the schedule, below, for when you should purchase them.
The Work What is "the work" for this class? 1) Do the readings before the class at which they are to be discussed; 2) write discussion preparation memos and hand them in on time; 3) come to class; 4) talk about the readings in class, based on your memos and others' comments; 5) lead in-class discussions, when asked; 6) plan, complete, and hand in all of the writing assignments. I think that the readings are the core of the courses that I teach and so I would call this class "reading intensive." I expect you to take the assigned readings seriously and to prepare for and attend class by doing the readings and writing discussion preparation notes that I will collect as part of your graded work. I expect you to write all of the memos assigned. Finally, I expect you to contribute to class discussions regularly and not just when you are leading a discussion. I have divided the course into 6 segments over the duration of the semester (see schedule). At the end of each segment I ask you to submit/do work for evaluation--I call these work submission points. The form of this work will vary a bit, but will include an in-class short answer essay exam for the first segment and five-page essays for most of the others. There also may be a take-home essay option. For some of these essays, I also may ask for a first draft as part of the writing process. I will talk more about this in class. The 5-page essays will be both on topics/questions that you will have to propose and develop and also written in response to my questions. The essays you develop must be specifically drawn from the readings and discussions we have had or are having in class. I ask you to propose an idea/topic for writing via email and then I will respond to your idea and either approve it or ask for a revised proposal. Only essays on approved questions will be accepted. I will ask for most of this exchange/negotiation on topics to take place via email communications between us, of which I will keep copies. While you are expected to submit work for all segments, I will choose the 4 highest grades received as the basis for 75% of your course grade. Each piece of this work will be equally weighted at 18.75%. In addition, I will accumulate a file of 2-page, single-spaced discussion preparation memos I ask you to prepare for each class in which a new discussion begins (knowing just when this is requires you to be in class because due dates depend on how quickly we move through the material). These memos should not be reading notes or outlines. They should not just re-state what is in the reading assigned. Rather, they should focus on a small number of issues or questions or confusions you found in the assigned reading that you would like to bring forth for discussion and possibly future/more thought and writing. The memos must be linked specifically and closely to points in the reading texts assigned for the discussion. That is, I expect the memos to take you/us back into the text and not away from it to something else or some other source. These memos, taken together, will be the basis for the remaining 25% participation grade. These memos are due at the end of the class in which the discussion begins and must be turned in then or not at all. Since our schedule of discussion will be somewhat flexible, it is important that you be responsible for knowing what it happening at every class meeting. When you are asked to be, or volunteer for, discussion leader (along with one or two other students), you should use these preparation memos as the basis of your discussion-leading efforts in class. I will evaluate these pages on the basis of how well they frame questions/topics for discussion, that is, on how carefully and thoughtfully they draw out ideas, issues, confusions, insights from the assigned reading and that take us back into the reading text to find possible answers. (For instance, something like, "What did you think of Becker's idea of moral entrepreneurs?" would fall short here, in my view, in that it does not go far enough actually to pose a puzzle or dilemma or problem for analytic and critical talk; it also does not suggest that one has looked into the idea very carefully before forming the topic for discussion.) I also expect your memos to reflect some degree of "coverage" or distribution across the material assigned, although this can only be roughly so, given the amount of reading and the memo page limit (2 single-spaced pages). I will try to talk about what I think "good questions" are as we move along. I will make brief comments on these memos, make copies for my files, and return them to you. I won’t grade each memo but I will give you my sense of what you are doing and I will give you a midterm grade on the memos. I do not accept late submissions nor will I give "make-up" opportunities. There are of course extraordinary circumstances that might warrant consideration, but they must be extraordinary. In any case, you must discuss these with me in advance of the relevant deadline. If you miss any evaluations without offering extraordinary circumstances in advance, you will not have completed the course work. I will make a record of your presence in class. More than three (3) absences make me doubt your commitment to the class and will make it difficult for you to earn higher than a C grade, despite the quality of the work you hand in. Class Meetings Class meetings are roughly coordinated with the readings. I try to decide exactly what we should do in class based on my assumptions about what you are reading or have read and what you might be thinking, given your reading. This obviously means there is a sort of flexibility in the way things move along. Depending on how a class goes, we might have to come back to one thing or take longer than anticipated with another. That means you have to pay attention to what the shared sense of "where we are and what we are doing and what about next time" as we go along. I try to pose questions and set topics for us based on the readings you are doing. If you have not read the materials by the time we talk about them in class, then what is said likely will not be very clear or helpful to you; you'll feel bored; it may seem like a waste of your time. Moreover, your discussion preparation memos will suffer as will that part of your evaluation. Again, the coordination between what I do and what you read is loose and is influenced by what happens in each class. I prefer directed discussion to my lecturing and will try to see to it that happens most of the time. For each discussion class (that is, for most of them), I will ask 2-3 students to be responsible for leading discussion on the readings for that day but will expect everyone to be prepared to contribute to/respond to these questions. This is part of your expected class participation. My "lecture" style is quite informal and conversational; don't mistake it for "not lecturing." If you aren't clear about what I expect from you, please ask me in class (others will benefit from this too because they also will be wondering). Email Contact I rely heavily on email contact with students. If you are not a regular user of Drake's mail system you will need to become one. I don't mean "the web"; I just mean email. You should see people in computer services in the basement of Carnegie Hall to get set up if you are not. I cannot stress enough the importance of your having this hook-up for our communication with each other. We may set up an email discussion net for the class so that we can continue class discussions in that virtual space. Reading, Class, and Work Schedule 1. Three Figures for Thinking about "Badness" from U.S. Sociology: Affinity, Affiliation, and Signification January 22-February 5 (roughly 5 class meetings) Readings: (a) Selections from David Matza. 1969. Becoming Deviant. Selections from chapters 5-7, "Affinity," "Affiliation," and "Signification." Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall (at Copycat Copies, Supplemental Readings I). (b) Selected additional pages to be distributed in class.
2. The Labeling-Interactionist/Social Constructionist View of Deviance/Social Problems February 7-March 5 (roughly 7 meetings) Readings: (a) Becker. Outsiders.
(b) Malcolm Spector and John I. Kitsuse. 2000. Constructing Social Problems. Chs. 1-5, 8. (c) Peter Conrad and Joseph Schneider. 1992. Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to Sickness. Ch. 2, "From Badness To Sickness: Changing Designations Of Deviance And Social Control." (Copycat Copies, Supplemental Readings II.) 3. Social Control in Service of the Disciplinary Society March 7-March 28 (roughly 5 meetings, plus spring recess week, March 18-22) Readings: (a) Foucault, Discipline and Punish.
4. Confession, Truth, Sex, and Power April 2-April 16 (roughly 5 meetings) Readings: (a) Foucault, The History of Sexuality.
5. From "Deviants" to Identity Politics: U.S. Talk Television and Social Change April 18-May 7 (roughly 6 meetings) Readings: (a) John I. Kitsuse. 1980. "Coming Out All Over: Deviants and the Politics of Social Problems." Social Problems 28:1-13. (Copycat Copies, Supplemental Readings II.) (b) Gamson, Freaks Talk Back.
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