Humanities Homework Help

Read through the following questions and answer one of them in your journal. Your answer should be complete, and must be written in standard, grammatically correct English.

1. Define and discuss deviance, crime and stigma, providing at least two examples of each. Are all deviant acts crimes? Why or why not? Are all crimes deviant acts? Why or why not?

2. Emile Durkheim argued that deviance was actually functional for society. What does it mean to say that something is functional for society? Discuss the three major contributions that deviance makes to social order, providing at least one example of each.

3. What is the medicalization of deviance? Discuss how the ideas of Thomas Szasz differ from those most popular within the medical community. Do you agree with Szasz’ assessment of attention-deficit disorder (ADD)? Why or why not?

4. Sociologist Robert Merton developed a typology of deviance. He examined both the role of cultural goals and a person’s willingness and/or ability to use the institutionalized (or approved) means of working toward the goals. Summarize the five modes of adaptation that Merton identified, discussing the cultural goals and institutionalized means characteristics of each. Provide at least two examples of each mode.

5. Define labeling theory and techniques of neutralization? Gresham Sykes and David Matza explored how deviants adapt to negative labels that society assigns to them, identifying five techniques of neutralization.. List and discuss each technique, providing at least one example of each.