BECKERS INTERACTIONIST VIEW

• Beckers Perspective

  • Interactionalism explores interaction between person who commits act and those who react to it
  • Becker argues that deviance is created by society, social groups create deviance by making rules, applying them to particular people and labelling them as outsiders
  • Whether act is considered deviant depends on how others react to it, this varies by when and where act takes place, who commits act and how is harmed by it
  • Some groups have power to make rules and apply them to others, power related to age, ethnicity, gender, class eg adult make rules for child
• Beckers Perspective

  Becker explores how people develop deviant careers overtime

  • eg young woman uses drugs, is caught and labelled as deviant changing how others see her
  • this new status becomes her master status and overrides her status as daughter or employee, parents rejects her, loses home and friends and job
  • She restores to criminal and deviant behaviour such as shoplifting to support her habit
  • Finally moves into group with deviant sub-culture and sees herself as one of them
  • Becker argues labelling may produce a self-fulfilling prophecy
• Criticisms of Becker

  • Interactionism doesnt explain why individuals deviate in the first place
  • Sees people as victims of labelling rather than people who choose to commit crime
  • Interactionism ignores influence of social structure on behaviour, Marxists argue interactionism does not focus enough on power inequalities between social classes