ABSTRACT
The sociology of deviance is made up of two distinct but interlocking enterprises-essentialism and constructionism. Essentialism sees deviance as objectively real and hence, scientifically explicable. In contrast, constructionism argues that the most crucial feature of deviance is the fact that rules, judgments of wrongdoing, and assigning offenders to deviant categories, are made by specific audiences in specific contexts and hence, have no reality apart from such judgments. Essentialism implies positivism, or the scientific effort to explain, in a cause-and-effect fashion, why people engage in deviant behavior. Here, we’ll focus on the perspectives that make use of the essentialist and positivistic framework. “Explaining” deviance in a positivistic fashion entails attempting to answer the “Why do they do it?” question. In a very real sense, these two enterprises-essentialism and constructionismare disparate and incommensurable; the framework of each approaches the phenomenon from radically different angles. Essentialism regards the deviant act as the primary concern; constructionism regards the process by which the act is judged and reacted to as deviant (Wright, 1984, pp. 188, 189, 190).
