Fahmida Begum
The Social Construction of Crime and Deviance Notes
Week 1 Notes:
The Social Construction of Crime and ‘Deviance’
The law and what counts as crime is not the same across time and in different
countries.
It is shaped as societies change and the balance of power between different
groups change
The three examples of change were usually introduced by social movements
such as Suffragettes, Bristol Bus Boycotts and LGBTQ+ movements
Power comes from below as well as above
Week 2 Notes:
What is Social Construction?
Origins of social construction
Social construction is a specific group of theories to analyse how members of
society and/or different social groups within that society, through interaction,
‘construct’ their social world.
Values are- The cultural standards that people use to decide what is good or bad,
what is right or wrong. They serve as ideals and guidelines that individuals live by.
Beliefs are- Specific ideas about what people think is true about the social world.
Different cultures have different values
Western countries like the US tend to value individualism and stress the
importance of individual needs, whereas countries like South Korea tend to
value collectivism and stress the importance of groups of individual.
Social control can be:
1. Formal: Codified into legislation and the purview of police, courts, prisons
2. Informal: Groups of families, peers and authority figures (teachers, doctors,
religious leaders), popular culture that all have varying levels of influence on
behaviour
Norms- The rules and expectations that guide behaviour within a society.
Norms can be constraining and a form of social control.
Social control is a regular feature of ‘socialisation’. How one grows and comes to
learn about the values and norms of society.
