Interactionism

• interactionist master status

  Becker

  describe how once a label has been applied to someone, all actions that a person performed in the past are interpreted the light of this label

  stop referring to people as a dedicated teacher and instead refer to them as a thief
• interactionist labelling

  agents of social control attach stigmatising stereotypes to a particular group and the way the stigmatised change their behaviour once labelled
• interactionist moral entrepreneurs

  Becker

  are in the business of persuading the society to make policy from particular moral viewpoints - pressure groups and the press
• interactionist looking glass self

  Cooley

  we build our identity primarily as a result of how others act and respond to us

  the view of myself is likely to influence how I act towards other people
• interactionist wc and emg targeted

  Reiner

  found wc and emg living in specific areas were much more likely to be targeted by the police
• interactionist social construct of deviance

  Becker

  the social construct of deviance requires 2 things

  1. one groups who usually lack power, behaves in a particular way
  2. another group with more power responds negatively to it and labels.it as criminal

  claims powerful groups create rules or laws to define what counts as deviance and labels those who fail to conform as criminals
• interactionist deviant career

  Becker

  normally use term career for the gradual climb up the ladder - this process is going on as people gradually attain status of being a criminal

  labelled as criminals and the final acceptance of the label will either conform to others they were right all along
• interactionist primary deviance

  Lemert

  refers to deviant acts that have not been publicly labelled - often trivial - 'a moment of madness'
• interactionist secondary deviance

  Lemert

  the result of societal reaction - labelling

  being caught and publicly labelled can lead to being shamed and excluded from society

  once someone is labelled, others may see them only in terms of that label
• interactionist impact of labelling

  Lemert

  • this becomes a master status overriding all others
  • can provoke a crisis of individual self concept
  • one way to resolve this for the individual is to accept this deviant label - self fulfilling prophecy
• interactionist justice is negotiable

  Cicourel

  e.g if a middle class women was caught with a joint she would be less likely to be charged with possession compared to a working class youth - due to the mc women being less fitting to the stereotype of criminality
• interactionist evaluation

  • helps explain different rates of offending through the activities of the police and the law courts
  • recognition that deviance is socially constructed
• interactionist weakness

  • the extent to which the justice system affects whether a labelled individual continues their deviant career is unclear
  • other factors affect such as gender , class
  • tends to treat deviants as passive victims of social control agencies