2.5 Labelling theory key terms

• Pluralism


  A theory of political power in liberal democracies which argues that power is spread out among numerous different interest groups and that the state mediates between these interests in the national interest.
• Black power

  A social movement that developed out of the Black Civil Rights movement in the USA in the 1960s dedicated to Black empowerment
• Criminalisation


  Making an act or omission against the criminal law
• Liberal democracies

  Countries such as those in Western Europe and North America with political systems based on representative democracy in which individual rights and freedoms are officially recognised and protected
• Stigma

  Characteristics that are seen as socially discrediting
• Degradational

  Designed to reduce an individual's social status
• Outsiders 


  People who are seen as living outside the boundary of respectable society
• Master status

  A social status that overwhelms all the other statuses that a person has
• Self-fulfilling prophecy 


  A prediction that comes true because it provokes people to act in ways that produce the predicted outcome
• Deviant career

  A life-path based on pursuing socially disapproved activities
• Moral crusade

  The campaign waged by moral entrepreneurs in order to get the law changed.
• Phenomenological

  Phenomenological sociologists see the social world as comprising sets of social meanings that constitute reality for the members of society. They reject the idea that there is an objective social reality underlying
• Reintegrative shaming

  Treating offenders in a way which allows them to remain a part of society while making clear that they have done something morally wrong.
• Disintegrative shaming

  Penal policies based on the idea that the way to reform offenders is to publicly shame them
• Problematising

  Identifying something as in need of examination rather than as something to be taken at face value
• Underdog

  Individuals or groups who are treated as inferior by society
• Deviance disavowal

  To 'disavow' something is to claim it is untrue, so deviance disavowl is the rejection of a deviant label.