ABSTRACT
Deviance has been a topic of interest in sociology ever since its inception during the industrial revolution. The study of deviance is crucial to the overall goal of sociology for one simple reason: social life is based in large part upon social rules. Macro-sociologists (e.g., the structuralists and functionalists we talked about earlier) usually focus their attention on how social rules such as customs, culture, or laws determine or otherwise shape people’s behavior. Everyday life sociologists (e.g., symbolic interactionists and constructionists), on the other hand, emphasize how people actively create, negotiate, reshape, and use social rules to make sense of people’s behaviors within situations. But, regardless of theoretical orientation, understanding deviance is the key to a better understanding of social rules, order, and individual and collective behavior.
