Deviance: Social Change and Control

Deviant behaviour can be described as a departure from social customs, values, norms and rules in various social contexts.

When deviant behaviour occurs in a society—behaviour which flouts its basic values and norms—one element in its coming into being is a breakdown in social controls, those mechanisms which ordinarily operate to maintain valued forms of behaviour.

Howard S. Becker (1955)

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

1. Department of Marketing and Management, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia Jo. M. Martins & Fei Guo
2. Department of Sociology, University of California Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA David A. Swanson

1. Jo. M. Martins