case study related to labeling theory case study related to labeling theory

Mead, G. H. (1934). Howard Becker argued that the deviant label can become a master status in which the individuals deviant identity overrules all other identities. Labeling Theory Case Study - Charita Davis #18 in Global Rating Essay. According to Interactionists, the Mass Media has a crucial role to play in creating moral panics through exaggerating the extent to which certain groups and turning them into Folk Devils people who are threatening to public order. Freud's theories were developed through case studies; in particular the study of the 5-year-old "Little Hans".As part of the biology of aggression, you will learn about the case study of . Zhangs study presented Chinese youths with a group of hypothetical delinquents and found that while those who had been punished more severely triggered greater amounts of rejection from youths who themselves had never been officially labeled as deviant, youths who had been labeled as deviant did not reject these labeled peers due to the severity of the official punishment. The Chinese government implicitly encouraged the masses to widely revile criminals and deviants, while officially stating that they aimed to reform delinquent behavior, particularly in adolescents. Briar, S., & Piliavin, I. (2016). This theory explores the journey to social deviance in two stages; primary deviance and secondary deviance, which are both incorporated into Labeling Theory as well. NB Theres a lot more information about the social construction of drug use out there think about the difference between coffee, nicotine, alcohol (all legal) and cannabis. According to Interactionist theory, decriminalisation should reduce the number of people with criminal convictions and hence the risk of secondary deviance, an argument which might make particular sense for many drugs offences because these are often linked to addiction, which may be more effectively treated medically rather than criminally. But, on further investigation, it turned out that incest was not uncommon on the island, nor was it really frowned upon provided those involved were discrete. This type of deviance, unlike primary deviance, has major implications for a persons status and relationships in society and is a direct result of the internalization of the deviant label. We address this knowledge gap by examining how crop-based GEF adoption is linked to public trust in institutions and values using the Theory of Planned Behavior. Notably, Paternoster and Iovanni (1989) argued that large portions of labeling research were methodologically flawed to the extent that it offered few conclusions for sociologists. Key Terms. Zhang, L., & Messner, S. F. (1994a). Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. This is summed up by differential association theory (Sutherland and Cressey, 1992), which states that being able to associate and interact with deviant people more easily leads to the transference of deviant attitudes and behaviors between those in the group, leading to further deviance. Worden, R. E., Shepard, R. L., & Mastrofski, S. D. (1996). Bernburg, J. G. (2019). A closely related concept to labelling theory is the that of the self-fulfilling prophecy - where an individual accepts their label and the label becomes true in practice - for example, a student labelled as deviant actually becomes deviant as a response to being so-labelled. Labeling theory. It gives an insight on what could make an individual be attracted to criminal behavior as opposed to morally desirable behavior. Case studies are used to study people or situations that cannot be studied through normal methods like experiments, surveys or interviews. Theories help us explain why juveniles are engaging in delinquent behavior and it is important to understand why because it helps us explain the motives for their actions. Hewett, Norfolk. Most interactionist theory focuses on the negative consequences of labelling, but John Braithwaite (1989) identifies a more positive role for the labelling process. Labeling theory is a theory to understand deviance in the society, this theory is focused more on trying to understand how people react to behavior that happens around them and label it as 'deviant' or 'nondeviant'. In order for a moral panic to break out, the public need to believe what they see in the media, and respond disproportionately, which could be expressed in heightened levels of concern in opinion polls or pressure groups springing up that campaign for action against the deviants. It tends to be deterministic, not everyone accepts their labels, It assumes offenders are just passive it doesnt recognise the role of personal choice in committing crime. Sykes and Matza outlined five neutralization techniques: denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of victims, appeal to higher loyalties, and condemnation of condemners. At his trial for the attempted murder of the guard, Willie explained his violent behavior as a direct product of having been labeled a delinquent at an early age and being institutionalized in the state's juvenile and adult correctional systems for most of his life. We Will Write a Custom Case Study Specifically. The Sociological Quarterly, 48(4), 689-712. Sherman, L. W., Smith, D. A., Schmidt, J. D., & Rogan, D. P. (1992). Studies related to labeling theory have also explained how being labeled as deviant can have long-term consequences for a person's social identity. Becker provides a more extreme example in his book The Outsiders(1963) in this he draws on a simple illustration of a study by anthropologist Malinowski who describes how a youth killed himself because he hand been publicly accused of incest. The results of this stigmatization is a self-fulfilling prophecy in which the offenders come to view themselves in the same ways society does. This research was flawed for several reasons. My main page of links to crime and deviance posts. Aaron V. Cicourel and John I.Kitsuse (1963) conducted a study of the decisions counsellors made in one American high school. American Sociological Review, 680-690. Labeling theory is associated with the work of Becker and is a reaction to sociological theories which examined only the characteristics of the deviants, rather than the agencies which controlled them. As we will discuss in more details below, some scholars are skeptical of the labeling theory and accentuate that it would not be as affective and perhaps may cause individuals to engage in deviant behavior. The theory says that even though deviant behavior can have different causes and conditions, once people are labeled as deviants, they often face new problems from how they and others react to the negative stereotypes (stigma) that come with the label. Because these boys are not considering the reactions of conventional others, they take each others roles, present motives for delinquency, and thus act delinquently (Matsueda, 1992). Dunford, F. W., Huizinga, D., & Elliott, D. S. (1990). Find out More: Moral Panics and the Media. Bernburg, J. G., & Krohn, M. D. (2003). Continue with Recommended Cookies, ReviseSociologySociology Revision Resources for SaleExams, Essays and Short Answer QuestionsIntroFamilies and HouseholdsEducationResearch MethodsSociological TheoriesBeliefs in SocietyMediaGlobalisation and Global DevelopmentCrime and DevianceKey ConceptsAboutPrivacy PolicyHome. Many studies have also focused on how teachers label differentially based on both gender and ethnicity simultaneously. You could apply the same thinking to criminal behaviour more generally in Britain According to a recent 2015 survey of 2000 people, the average person in Britain breaks the law 17 ties per year, with 63% admitting speeding, 33% steeling and 25% taking illegal drugs clearly the general public is tolerant of ordinary deviance but every now and then someone will get spotted doing ordinary criminal activities and publicly shamed. This can replace the role that the conventional groups who have rejected these youths would have otherwise served (Bernburg, 2009). Labelling theory believes that deviance is made worse by labelling and punishment by the authorities, and it follows that in order to reduce deviance we should make fewer rules for people to break, and have less-serious punishments for those that do break the rules.An example of an Interactionist inspired policy would be the decriminalisation of drugs. They found that the social class backgrounds of students had an influence. Those in economically depressed areas places where perpetrators were less likely to be able to hold down a job had less to lose by the conventional social tie of work, and recidivism with higher. This research is unique in that it examines informal labeling the effects of that other people look at an adolescent have on that adolescents behavior. Edwin Lemert is widely recognized as the . Crime & Delinquency, 62(10), 1313-1336. It was this anxiety which lead to chronic stuttering. Labeling theory indicates that society's assigning of labels to individuals or certain groups can have an effect on their behavior. Labeling theory is an approach in the sociology of deviance that focuses on the ways in which the agents of social control attach stigmatizing stereotypes to particular groups, and the ways in which the stigmatized change their behavior once labeled. Any misbehavior may be explained entirely by how that individual is labeled as a criminal (Travis, 2002). Becker, H. (1963). Abstract. It has expanded my knowledge. Basically the public, the police and the courts selectively label the already marginalised as deviant, which the then labelled deviant responds to by being more deviant. Back to Labelling theory proper the key idea here is that not everyone who commits an offence is punished for it. Categories . thank you in advance, Toni Popovi. Explains the labelling theory, which describes the process of deviance in which an individual is given a negative identity and is forced to suffer the consequences of outcast status. al. Labeling theory stems from the school of symbolic interactionism, which believes that an individuals sense of self is formed by their interactions with and the labels ascribed to them by other people. Link (1982) proposes two processes for social exclusion among those labeled as deviant: a rejection or devaluation of the deviant person by the community and authorities; and secondly, the labeled person can expect rejection and devaluation, leading to social withdrawal. Victims are encouraged to forgive the person, but not the act, and the offender is welcomed back into the community, thus avoiding the negative consequences associated with secondary deviance. Lemert compared the coastal Inuit which emphasised the importance of public speaking to other similar cultures in the area which did not attach status to public-speaking, and found that in such culture, stuttering was largely non-existence, thus Lemert concluded that it was the social pressure to speak well (societal reaction) which led to some people developing problems with stuttering. Heart rate variability (HRV) features support several clinical applications, including sleep staging, and ballistocardiograms (BCGs) can be used to unobtrusively estimate these features. Labelling Theory or The Social Reaction Theory as it is more often known has been around and has developed over time from as early as 1938. He distinguishes between two types of shaming: A policy of reintegrative shaming avoids stigmatising the offender as evil while at the same time making them aware of the negative impact of their actions on others. Labeling theory states that people come to identify and behave in ways that reflect how others label them. This theory argues that deviance is a social construction, as no act is deviant in itself in all situations; it only becomes deviant when others label it as such. The process of defining a young person as a delinquent is complex, and it involves a series of interactions based on sets of meanings held by the participants. However, according to Interactionists, when new laws are created, they simply create new groups of outsiders and lead to the expansion of social control agencies such as the police, and such campaigns may do little to change the underlying amount of deviant activity taking place. Braithwaite argues that crime rates are lower where policies of reintegrative shaming are employed. The focus of this perspective is the interaction between individuals in society, which is the basis for meanings within that society. Sociologists generally agree that deviant labels are also stigmatizing labels (Bernburg, 2009). This is Howard Beckers classic statement of how labelling theory can be applied across the whole criminal justice system to demonstrated how criminals emerge, possibly over the course of many years. Hargreaves et al distinguished three stages of of typing or classification: In the first stage, that of speculation, the teachers make guesses about the types of student they are dealing with. However, when several other cities replicated this experiment, they found that arresting domestic violence perpetrators actually resulted in significant increases in domestic violence (Dunford, Huizinga, and Elliott, 1990). This post has been written primarily for A-level sociology students, although it will hopefully be a useful primer for anyone with a general interest in this subject. When middle class delinquents are arrested they are less likely to be charged with the offence as they do not fit the picture of a typical delinquent. Labeling theory has become part of a more general criminological theory of sanctions that includes deterrence theory's focus on the crime reduction possibilities of sanctions, procedural justice theory's focus on the importance of the manner in which sanctions are imposed, and defiance/reintegrative theory's emphasis on individual differences in According to this hypothesis, people who are assigned labels like "criminal," "delinquent," or "juvenile offender" begin to identify with those labels and incorporate them into their . Labeling can encourage deviant behavior in three ways: a deviant self-concept, a process of social exclusion, and increased involvement in deviant groups. Delinquency, situational inducements, and commitment to conformity. As Howard Becker* (1963) puts it Deviancy is not a quality of the act a person commits, but rather a consequences of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an offender. Moral Panic Notes - Brief summary of theory and criticism. Formal and Informal Labeling Cicourel argues that it is the meanings held by police officers and juvenile officers that explain why most delinquents come from working class backgrounds. Deviant self-concept originates from the theory of symbolic interactionism. (1975), in their classic book Deviance in Classrooms, reported a study in which they interviewed teachers and observed classrooms, examining the process through which teachers "got to know" new students. For an act to be "criminal" (as distinct from harmful, immoral, antisocial, etc. Labelling theory is one of the main parts of social action, or interactionist theory, which seeks to understand human action by looking at micro-level processes, looking at social life through a microscope, from the ground-up. In his article Becker defines deviance as being created by society. Labelling theory has been applied to the representation of certain groups in the mainstream media Interactionists argue that the media has a long history of exaggerating the deviance of youth subcultures in particular, making them seem more deviant than they actually are, which creates a moral panic among the general public, which in turn leads to the authorities clamping down on the activities of those subcultures, and finally to the individuals within those subcultures responding with more deviance. This was very helpful for my research, thank you. Is it Hargreaves, Waterhouse or someone else, or is it the synthesizing of their ideas? Those in Power are just as deviant/ criminal as actual criminals but they are more able to negotiate themselves out of being labelled as criminals. For You For Only $13.90/page! Labeling theory explains how others perceive a person's behavior. Corrections? Current Sociology, 64(6), 931-961. Overview of Labelling Theories, www. 12 exam practice questions including short answer, 10 mark and essay question exemplars. There was little consistent empirical evidence for labeling theory (the evidence that did exist was methodologically flawed), and critics believed that labeling theory was vague, simplistic and ideologically motivated. Then, based on its characteristics, they label it within social and cultural conventions. He also found that teachers made their judgments not necessarily on any evidence of ability, but on appearance (whether they were neat and tidy) and whether they were known to have come from an educated, middle class family (or not). In the case of diagnosing mental illness, the power to label is a significant one and is entrusted to the psychiatrist. Sampson, R. J., & Laub, J. H. (1995). Teachers have only a very limited idea about who their students are as individuals when they first enter the school, based mainly on the area where they came from, and they thus have to build up an image of their students as the school year progresses. Mind, self and society (Vol. (2006). Rist (1970) Student Social Class and Teachers Expectations: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Ghetto Education, Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) Pygmalion in the Classroom (the famous self-fulfilling prophecy experiment!). Firstly, labeling can cause rejection from non-deviant peers. Rosenthal and Jacobsen (1968) argued that positive teacher labelling can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy in which the student believes the label given to them and the label becomes true in practise. On the meaning and measurement of suspects demeanor toward the police: A comment on Demeanor and Arrest. LABELLING THEORY AND CRIMINOLOGY: AN ASSESSMENT* CHARLES WELLFORD Florida State University This analysis considers the usefulness of labelling theory as an explanatory model for theories of criminal law-violating behavior. labeling theory is said to be 'off the mark' on almost every aspect of delinquency it is asked to predict or explain, possibly because the theory has 'prospered in an atmosphere of contempt for the result of careful research.' notes are included. Interactionists argue that people do not become criminals because of their social background, but rather argue that crime emerges because of labelling by authorities. Some of our partners may process your data as a part of their legitimate business interest without asking for consent. This in turn can affect their attitudes towards school, their behaviour, and ultimately their level of achievement in education. This is caused by a transaction, where someone projects themselves into the role of another and seeing if the behavior associated with that role suits their situation (Mead, 1934). Hi if you mean the diagram, I just created it in Microsoft Publisher. In this example, chronic stuttering (secondary deviance) is a response to parents reaction to initial minor speech defects (primary deviance). In summary deviance is not a quality that lies in behaviour itself, but in the interaction between the person who commits an act and those who respond to it. Thus if a student is labelled a success, they will succeed, if they are labelled a failure, the will fail. The objective of this study was to explore the perceived impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and . Factors associated with a typical delinquent include being of dishevelled appearance, having poor posture, speaking in slang etc. This improves the validity of the results and makes them more conclusive. Some sociologists, such as Matsueda (1992) have argued that the concept of self is formed on the basis of their interactions with other people. This decision is based on meanings held by the police of what is strange, unusual and wrong. Carter, M. J., & Fuller, C. (2016). Lemert suggested that the problem was caused by the great importance attached to ceremonial speech-making. In general those with middle class manners were more likely to be labelled good prospects for college while those with working class manners and style were more likely to be labelled as conduct problems. Other theorists, such as Sampson and Laub (1990) have examined labeling theory in the context of social bonding theory. Bernburg, J. G. Chapter title: Labeling and Secondary Deviance. Howard Becker illustrates how crime is the product of social interactions by using the example of a fight between young people. The labels which teachers give to pupils can influence the construction and development of students identities, or self-concepts: how they see and define themselves and how they interact with others. The Process of Label Formation (Speculation, Elaboration, Stabilization) Hargreaves et. Labelling, Strain theory and Positivism Essay - Warning: TT: undefined function: 32 Warning: TT: - Studocu positivism positivism is the scientific explanation behind the behaviour of criminal. However, labels can also be ascribed to someone by groups of people who do not have the official authority to label someone as deviant. Becker argues that a deviant is someone who the label has been successfully applied. Criminal justice and behavior, 21(4), 387-402. This increased involvement in deviant groups stems from Two-Factors. Learn how your comment data is processed. Thank you so much for this excellently written, well detail, very informative, and friendly reading essay! It fails to explain why acts of primary deviance exist, focussing mainly on secondary deviance. Chriss, J. J. Today, sociologists apply conflict theory to a multitude of social problems that stem from imbalances of power that play out as racism, gender inequality, and discrimination and exclusion on the basis of sexuality, xenophobia, cultural differences, and still, economic class .