Conformity and Deviance

Conformity and deviance (Macionis 2012: 194)

Every society is a system of social control, or attempts by society to regulate
peoples thoughts and behavior. Social control encourages conformity to certain
norms and discourages deviance or norm breaking. Deviance range from minor
infractions, such as bad manners, to major infractions, such as serious violence.
Norms that become specified and institutionalized are called laws. Crime refers to
the violation of the law.
There is a lack of consensus in society regarding which behaviors or traits are
deviant. What is considered as deviance will vary across time, places, and social
groups. How a society defines deviance, who is branded as deviant, and what people
decide to do about deviance all have to do with the way society is organized.
The functions of deviance (Macionis 2012: 197).According to Emile Durkheim
(18581917), deviance performs the following functions:
Affirms cultural norms and values. Deviance is needed to define and support
morality. There can be no good without evil and no justice without crime.
Clarifies moral boundaries. By defining some individuals as deviant, people
draw a boundary between right and wrong.
Brings people together. People typically react to serious deviance with shared
outrage, and in doing so reaffirm the moral ties that bind them.
Encourages social change. Deviant people suggest alternatives to the status
quo and encouraging change.
Mertons strain theory (Macionis 2012: 197198). Robert Merton (19102003)
argued that the extent and type of deviance people engage in depend on whether a
society provides the means (such as schooling and job opportunities) to achieve
cultural goals (such as financial success). Conformity means achieving cultural
goals through approved means. However, the strain between the cultural goal and the
lack of opportunities to achieve these goals using approved means may result in
deviance. Merton identifies four types of deviance: innovation, ritualism, retreatism,
and rebellion. Innovation involves using unconventional means (for example, Steve
Jobs, the founder of the Apple computer company, and his colleagues who, without
support from big corporations, worked in a garage to invent personal computers)
rather than conventional means (working for an established computer company) to
achieve a culturally approved goal (wealth). In ritualism, people do not care much
about the goal (getting rich) but stick to the rules (the conventional means) anyway in
order to feel respectable. A third response to the strain between the cultural goal
and the approved means is retreatism, rejecting both cultural goals and conventional
means so that a person in effect drops out. The fourth response is rebellion. Like
retreatists, rebels reject both the cultural definition of success and the conventional
means of achieving it, but they provide alternatives to the existing social order.
Activity: My Prediction
Let the students read the title, first page, and last page of the article. Make them think of what
they already know about the topic or the article itself.

I think this reading about citizenship would be about __________________________

__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________

Processing Questions
1. Why did you come up with these speculations?
2. What ideas, events, and actions can you relate with citizenship?
Activity: Footprints of a Good Citizen
Tell the students to list down the ways with which one can become a good citizen of the nation and
then ask them to elaborate on how they themselves would do these.

Process Questions
1. How will the country benefit from what you have listed?
2. How will you influence other people to become good and active citizens?

Lesson: Exploring Groups Within Society

Key concepts
Society is made up of social groups. A social group consists of two or more people
who identify with and interact with one another. People who make up a group share
experiences, loyalties, and interests. Examples of social groups are couples, families,
circles of friends and barkada, churches, clubs, businesses, neighborhoods, and large
organizations (Macionis 2012: 146).
According to Macionis (2012), there are two types of social groups. The primary
group is a small social group whose members share personal and lasting relationships.
These personal and tightly integrated groups are among the first groups an individual
experiences in life. The most important primary group in any society is the family.
Friends who shape an individuals attitudes, behavior, and social identity also form
ones primary group.
The secondary group is a large and impersonal social group whose members pursue
a specific goal or activity. Unlike the primary group which is defined according to
who they are in terms of family ties or personal qualities, membership in secondary
groups is based on what people can do for each other.
Over time, a group may transform from secondary to primary, as with classmates or
neighbors who develop closer relationships. Moreover, while it is possible to identify
some groups as either primary or secondary, most social groups actually contain
elements of both. For example, a student organization may be larger and more
anonymous, but its members may identify strongly with one another and provide
mutual support.
Through socialization, individuals develop the need to conform. To assess ones own
attitudes and behaviors, individuals use a reference group, a social group that serves
as a point of reference in making evaluations and decisions (Macionis, 2012).
Reference groups can be primary or secondary, as well as groups that we do not
belong to, as in the case of a person following fashion styles described in a fashion
magazine.
Besides reference groups, there is also the opposition of in-groups and out-groups. An
in-group is a social group toward which a member feels respect and loyalty, while an out-
group is a social group toward which a person feels a sense of competition or
opposition (Macionis, 2012).
As groups grow beyond three people, they become more stable and capable of
withstanding the loss of one or more members. At the same time, increases in group
size reduce the intense personal interaction possible only in the smallest groups.
Larger groups are based less on personal attachment and more on formal rules and
regulations (Macionis, 2012).
A network is group containing people who come into occasional contact but who
lack a sense of boundaries and belonging (Macionis, 2012). Some scholars claim that
networks are nonhierarchical, value-free, and structure-less organizations, and that
they are composed of people working on similar tasks without necessarily knowing
each other. This is illustrated by social networking sites such as Facebook.

Activity: Group Matrix

Directions: Complete the table/matrix below by citing examples of various kinds of groups in
the Philippine context. Why do You Think So?
Activity: Find Me!
Directions: Ask the learners to complete the table/matrix below. Each learner must
go around asking classmates to sign on the box if they match the description
contained therein. Alternatively, the class may fill in the boxes as a group. In this
case, the teacher would have to reproduce the matrix on the blackboard, and then ask
for a show of hands for the description in each box.

Process Questions
1. What kinds of institutions do you think were represented in the activity?
2. How do the family, school, religion, economy, civil society, and the health center or hospitals
affect your life?
Activity: My Amazing Life
This activity will allow the students to realize that change starts within them. Ask the students
to fill out the organizer below with information about them and the big changes in their lives.
Process Questions:
1. What is the most significant event in your life? Why is this most important to you?
2. How do you relate to this quotation Nothing is permanent in this world except change?"
Give concrete examples
3. Why do some people oppose or resist change?