Social Groups and Deviance
Choose one of the following questions:
1. Using what you have learned about groups, organizations, and bureaucracies this week, compare and contrast two different groups or organizations of which you are a member. Describe the two groups. How do they differ in terms of leadership, membership, purpose, and activities? What is your role in the group? Provide examples in your discussion.
2. Do you agree with Emile Durkheim that deviance is functional and is a necessary part of society? What functions might deviance provide? In your answer be sure to describe Durkheim’s main thesis regarding the function of deviance. Think of a time when you used informal negative sanctions. To what act of deviance were you responding? How did your reaction help maintain social control?
Meet the following objectives:
- Apply a sociological perspective to the social world.
- Analyze contemporary social issues using the sociological imagination and use sociological theories and concepts to analyze everyday life.
- Identify and describe bureaucracies and formal organizations.
- Describe deviance and social control from a sociological perspective.
- 250+ words
