Understanding

Culture, Society
and Politics
Grade 12 – Ms. Fatima Guarino
Work Plan

•News Sharing
•Review
•Activity
•Discussion
•Wrap Up
•Assessment
What’s the latest?
Review

How do individuals learn

the culture of one's
society?
Activity

Do you think biological

characteristics can
contribute to a person’s
desire to commit crime?
 Topics 1. Deviance & Conformity
2. Human dignity, rights, and
the common good

Lesson Objectives ∙ Identify the social goals and the

socially acceptable means of
achieving these goals
∙ Promote the protection of human
dignity, rights, and the common
good
Conformity and
Deviance
What’s the
latest news?
Social What’s the
Conformity
Control latest news?

Deviance
 Conformity
• the act of submitting oneself to the norms and
conventions of society.

Why do we conform?
- Is it for the sake of convenience? Is it because
we belong to the majority? Or is it because we
don’t want hassle in life?
Why do people conform?

We conform because we
We conform because don’t want to be punished
there is a reward that strictly and be stricken off the
we get. rights we have as citizens and
individuals.
Deviance

• Refers to the violation of norms.

• Constitutes departure from norms which

result in social disapproval so that the
variations arouse or are likely to elicit
negative sanctions if detected
Clinard and Meir variations in the
definitions of deviance:

• Statistical – What is normal or non-deviant is determined by

common conditions; what is the statistical minority
represents deviance.
• Absolutist – it is an outcome of a value judgment based on
absolute standards. It is defined in terms of violation of
tradition or custom.
• Reactivist –it is a result of reaction or label of a social
audience of behavior or condition of a person or persons.
• Normative – the label “deviant” results from a group’s
notion of actions and conditions that should and should not
occur.
 Deviance

Sociologists:
- deviant behavior is one that tails to conform to the
rules or norms of the group. It implies something
evaluated negatively.
- are interested in how deviance comes about and its
effects on society.
Anthropologists:
- are concerned primarily with how the members of a
society jointly reach consensus about deviance.
 Deviance

Is RELATIVE!

What is accepted to one society may not be accepted

to another.
- Abortion, pre-marital sex, polygamy, and divorce are
strongly disapproved by the catholic church
 Deviance
The important questions to consider in determining
whether a certain type of behavior is deviant or not are:

• Which norms are violated? Who violated them?

• Are they members of the upper class or of the
lower class?
• How visible is the deviation?
• Who decides whether such acts are deviant or
not?

Deviance is thus the result of judgment by members

of a society that an individual is departing, conform
to from social norms.
 Deviance
Emile Durkheim (Theory of Anomie): people lose their
sense of belongingness and life for them becomes
meaningless, uncertain or fraught with conflict – ANOMIE -
This feeling makes them drift and resort to other types of
behavior.

Robert Merton: failure to achieve goals, coupled with

unequal access to important environmental resources,
leads to deviance.

Crime is a result of a 'strain' between legitimate goals and

lack of opportunities to achieve those goals. Strain
Theory argues that crime occurs when there aren't enough
 Deviance

Robert Merton (“Strain” Theory of Deviance)

Crime is a result of a 'strain' between legitimate goals

and lack of opportunities to achieve those goals. 

This theory argues that crime occurs when there

aren't enough legitimate opportunities for people to
achieve the normal success goals of a society.
 Forms of Deviance
Robert K. Merton in the book of Macionis (2010)
 Forms of Deviance
Robert K. Merton in the book of Macionis (2010)

•Conformity involves the acceptance of the cultural

goals and means of attaining those goals.

Conformists
Accepting goals
Accepting means
 Forms of Deviance
Robert K. Merton in the book of Macionis (2010)

Ritualism involves the rejection of cultural goals but

the routinized acceptance of the means for
achieving the goals.

Ritualist
Rejecting goals
Accepting means
 Forms of Deviance
Robert K. Merton in the book of Macionis (2010)

Innovation involves the acceptance of the goals of

a culture but the rejection of the traditional and/or
legitimate means of attaining those goals. For
example, a member of the Mafia values wealth but
employs alternative means of attaining his wealth; in
this example, the Mafia member’s means would be
deviant.

Innovators – may result to crime

Accepting goals
Rejecting means
 Forms of Deviance
Robert K. Merton in the book of Macionis (2010)

Retreatism involves the rejection of both the cultural

goals and the traditional means of achieving those
goals.

Retreatist
Rejecting goals
Rejecting means
 Forms of Deviance
Robert K. Merton in the book of Macionis (2010)

Rebellion is a special case wherein the individual

rejects both the cultural goals and traditional means
of achieving them but actively attempts to replace
both elements of the society with different goals and
means.

Rebel – ex. Terrorists (very destructive form)

Rejecting goals
Rejecting means
What about social
control?
 Social Control

• The measures taken by society with

behavior that goes astray or violates the
norms.

• The deliberate attempts to change

behavior and to ensure conformity to the
norms.
 Social Control

Positive sanctions Negative sanctions

• are rewards meant to • are meant to discourage
encourage conduct that deviant behavior.
conforms to the group's norms.

Photo sources:
https://www.pngwing.com/en/free-png-zzrcl
https://www.shutterstock.com/search/child+reward
 Social Control

- Informal sanctions are used in the small groups

or in the remote rural areas where one knows
everyone else in the group. These may be in the
form of approval and praising, expressions of bad
opinion and gossip, or even ostracism.
- Formal social control refers to mechanisms that
involve specialized agencies which formulate rules,
codes, and standards of behavior to be followed or
punishments.
Wrap Up