"This book embraces a vision of deviance as a set of social processes involving a wide range of social dynamics and influences, including the multiple influences on human behavior emphasized by many positivistic theories of deviant behavior. The overarching approach of the book, however, is fully grounded in symbolic interactionism. Among the analytic approaches to deviance, only symbolic interactionism (or social construction, as some prefer) moves beyond the limited question of "what causes deviant behavior?" As valuable as the answers to that question can be, focusing solely on the causes of deviant behavior can give the inaccurate impression that what is defined as deviant behavior is always and everywhere the same. But while all human cultures have made distinctions between good and bad acts, what has been considered good or bad has varied widely. Definitions of deviance are far from universal, even within most societies at any given point in time. Focusing exclusively on the causes of deviant behavior misses more of the deviance process than it captures"--
Deviance: Social Constructions and Blurred Boundaries is designed for for courses on social deviance that take a strong sociological perspective. The book draws on up-to-date scholarship across a wide spectrum of deviance categories, providing a symbolic interactionist analysis of the deviance process. The book addresses positivistic theories of deviant behavior within a description of the deviance process that encompasses the work of deviance claims-makers, rule-breakers, and social control agents.
