Social Deviance

Stuart Henry is Professor of Criminal Justice at San Diego State University.

• Preface1 What is deviance?2 Why people ban behavior3 What causes people to deviate? Theories of deviant behavior4 Why people break rules: From extreme deviance to positive deviance5 Neutralizing morality and deviant motivations6 Failed socialization and weak social control7 How people become deviants: Labeling deviant actors8 Responding to deviant designations and coping with stigma9 Becoming normal: The politics of stigmaConclusion: What can the study of social deviance do for you?

“Stuart Henry has done a remarkable job of introducing the student to what is perhaps the most intriguing subject in the undergraduate curriculum. Pick up this book and read it. It is a brisk, engaging, and informative account of normative violations and their aftermath. Our students will enjoy and learn from it.”Erich Goode, State University of New York at Stony Brook“This second edition arrives at a propitious time, when our social fabric is being questioned on moral, ethical, and political grounds like never before. It does a superb job of contextualizing deviance among contemporary issues, allowing students to embrace the key concepts in the field, to understand the complexity of the issues, and to apply these ideas to their everyday lives. Well written and jargon free, with excellent examples to get its point across, it stands unmatched in its enunciation of the complexities of deviant behavior in a straightforward manner.”Peter Adler, University of Denver (Emeritus)