Transcript Durkheimian/Functionalist Approaches to Deviance

Durkheimian/Functionalist
Approaches to Deviance
Positivism and the Development
of Sociology
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Prior conceptions
Positivism as a social movement
The example of economics
Precursors to Durkheim
– Comte
– Quetelet
Durkheim’s Sociology
• Society as a reality sui generis
– Social facts
– Social statistics and the use of “indicators”
• The example of suicide
• Other important Durkheimian concepts
– The essential goodness of the evolved society
– The conscience collective
– Mechanical and organic solidarity
Durkheim on Law, Crime, and
Deviance
• Law
– Repressive law
– Restitutive law
– Law and forms of solidarity
• Crime and deviance
– Religious crimes
– Human crimes
– The FUNCTIONALITY of crime and deviance
Kai Erikson: A Modern
Durkheimian
• The notion of “boundary maintenance”
• A historical example of boundary
maintenance: Wayward Puritans
– The antinomian heresy
– The persecution of Quakers
– The Salem witch trials
Critiques of the Functionalist
Perspective
• Problems with theoretical assumptions
– Is society “consensual”?
– Is all deviance functional for society?
– What about individual- and group-level dysfunction?
• Problems with macro-level focus
– Ignores micro level
– Problem of vagueness
– Problem of validity