Discuss the relationship between deviant behavior and social movements

Discuss the relationship between deviant behavior and social movements

Discuss the relationship between deviant behavior and social movements, such as social movements that use violence.

Based the videos Animal Rights Extremists: Terrorism or Protest, we can clearly see the message sent by the DEX group, who was fighting for the chicken rights. They have the belief that going in taking what they believe is been done wrong they are doing right, not realizing that at the same time they provoking a deviance behavior, creating a social movement. These social group are in fact trying to make a change to locate the margins of deviance and respect, but at the same time going over board and committing the crime. ” Rather then being a fixed property, norms are subject to shift and evolution, and the interaction between deviant and agents of social control locate the margins between deviance and respectability. (pg. 17, Adler & Adler)

2. Explain the concept of social stigma and the role of the human body in influencing how different individuals and groups are stigmatized.

The concept of social stigma comes from society giving a certain group of people a label, based on their opinion of what is right form wrong. Social stigma, makes it seem as that person that they target is perceived by others as being wrong and have disapproval of society. Same happens when people are labeled as being obese or fat, based on their opinion on who image should look like. People tend to put labels and create support groups to help those that need fixing and making them feel as they are the problem in society. “social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance (pg. 263, Adler & Adler)”

Explain the concept of social stigma and the role of the human body in influencing how different individuals and groups are stigmatized.

Society plays a major role in how individuals view themselves. Society says you need to look a certain way to be successful and have a fulfilling life. In Adler and Adler’s study in chapter 23, we see how individuals view themselves based on other individuals perceptions. Some of the individuals studied did not think about themselves as “fat” until someone pointed it out. An individual was asked how they knew they were fat. Their response was “I was starting to be called chubby, and being teased in school” (Adler & Adler, 2016, p. 267). Since being labelled “fat” in our society is a negative label, some of the individuals would deflect calling themselves fat as they did not think they fit into that category. This process is called placing. One individual stated, “I wasn’t real fat in my eyes. I don’t think. I was just chunky” (Adler & Adler, 2016, p. 270).

Distinguish and evaluate the different ways that social movements and groups interpret or “frame” deviant acts?

Social groups can decide for themselves what they believe is deviant or not. As we learned in Hirschi’s Control Theory, “…the deviant rationalizes his behavior so that he can at once violate the rule and maintain his belief in it” (Adler & Adler, 2016, p. 94). In the video Animal Rights Extremists: Terrorism or Protest the animal rights group knew the consequences of their actions, but you could say they rationalized those actions because of their own beliefs. Constructionist Theory can apply to social movements as well because they are advocating for what they believe is deviant. “The constructionist approach recognizes that people can only understand the world in terms of words and categories that they create and share with one another” (Adler & Adler, 2016, p. 105). The animas rights group constructed that the farmers were the ones that were deviant due to what they believed about the treatment of the chickens. The same could be said for the farmers as they view the animal rights extremists as a terrorist group due to the actions of the group against the farm and farmers.

References

Adler, P. A., & Adler, P. (2016). Constructions of deviance: Social power, context, and interaction (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.