SOSYOLOJİYE GİRİŞ - Deneme Sınavı - 6

Anomie is related to a social situation, not to a personal state of mind. It is caused by the tension between individual interests and collective cultural conscious. According to Merton, the anomie is the product of a structural stress and caused by the existence of different levels of access to opportunity structures

Values: In the process of achieving a certain degree of social life; the values serve an important function in terms of determining which attitudes and behaviors are right or wrong, fair or unfair. It is possible to define social values as basic abstract principles or generalized moral beliefs that guide our attitudes and behaviors. Everything in the life of a society is perceived according to values. Values are the principles such as freedom and equality that define the ideal principles of what is desired and right in a society or group.

Norms: Values gain efficiency through norms. The social norms emerge in the form of religious rules, moral rules, manners and customs, etiquette and legal rules in social life. The norms are cultural

rules, which arise with the reward and punishment system and affect the individuals’ behaviors. All cultures, subcultures and groups have distinctive and specific norms that direct correct behaviors. The acts and laws, rules about clothing, games and sports, etc. all reflect social norms (Yüksel, 2015: 19; Schaefer, 2010:171; Johnson, 2000:209; Milovanovic, 2003:6).

The rules are required for a society. There will be chaos in a society, where norms do not exist. The norm is a system of rules with sanctions. The individuals could predict how other individuals would behave in the same situation thanks to these rules, which determine the limits of attitudes and behaviors. As shared cultural expectations, social norms enable people to live together in a society (Dönmezer, 1978: 245; İçli, 2002: 105; Newman and O’Brien, 2006: 71; Andersen and Taylor, 2005: 449). For example, family relations, political structure, production and consumption activities and traffic rules operate in accordance with certain norms. The individuals learn the norms in the process of socialization. When the norms are not complied with, social sanctions are imposed. The measure of sanction is proportional to severity of the norm. An individual who faces social punishment arranges his attitudes and behaviors accordingly.

Social norms could be basically classified into five groups; religious rules, moral rules, manners and customs, fashion rules and legal rules. The concept of anomie should be well understood to ensure a better understanding of norms.

Manners and Customs: The manners and customs are the social norms which arise spontaneously and gradually, though they are not explicitly put in place by any society, and which manage the relations within a society. Its sanctions are social pressures. The norms that have been repeated for a long time by the majority of the population and characterized by what we have mentioned are called thecustoms.Thesocialnorms,whicharecomprised of the same qualities and are subject to a very high degree of evaluation, are called the manners. The manners may include positive obligations, but the sanction of manners is stronger than the sanction of customs.

The function of law as a social concept can be listed as the following 

a. Defines the members of the group and determines mutual relationships

b. Resolves disputes c. Regulates the behaviors

d. Ensures that the social power is organized and legitimizes it
e. Develops the living conditions f. Protects from external hazards g. Realizes the legal organization

Oppressive: The laws might be more or lesschallenging. There is physical pressures at various levels in social control systems.

Facilitating: The laws ensure the expectationsabout behaviors and make them predictable.

Ideological: As a belief system, the ideologyis reflected in legal rules and it emerges,

depending on certain values.

Durkheim, Weber and Marx discussed the macro-sociological relationship between law and society in a positivist framework. Marx and Weber primarily focused on the relationship between law and political economy (Kay, 2015). While the classical sociologists like Durkheim, Weber and Marx provided important contributions in terms of the changing role of the law and its relation to social change, Eugene Elrich, Nicholas Timasheff and George Gurvitch provided the theoretical competence for the sociology of law during the 20thcentury.

The subjects that are studied by the sociology of law are as follows (Milovanovic, 2003: 4):

Justification, functions, placement and evolution of social control systems,

Legal forms of thought in relation to a particular political economic order,

Legitimating principles and effects,

Transfer of correct legal forms of interpretation,

The evolution of the legal language system, the levels of constraint or freedom in the

legal order.

Primary Deviance: Primary Deviancerefers to the initial acts of crossing the boundaries. In most cases, these behaviors are “marginal” in terms of the person’s own identity. In some cases, however, normalization does not occur and a person is labeled as criminal or guilty. It consists of the actions which are performed before it is clearly defined and labeled as deviance by society. Primary deviation behaviors are relatively insignificant in terms of their outcomes and effects. Skipping school or drinking alcohol as a minor draws less reaction and creates less impact on the person’s definition of the self.

Secondary Deviance: The cases in whichan individual accepts the label and starts to consider himself/herself as a deviant. It is the answer given by individuals or groups to social reaction. Some kinds of behaviors face a social response and the label causes a continuation of the deviant behavior by holding a central place in the identity of the individual. Someone may be more likely to deviate as a result of being identified as drunk or alcoholic and excluded from the group, and in these cases they need friendship with people who shut their eyes to these cases.

In the process of achieving a certain degree of social life; the values serve an important function in terms of determining which attitudes and behaviors are right or wrong, fair or unfair. It is possible to define social values as basic abstract principles or generalized moral beliefs that guide our attitudes and behaviors. Everything in the life of a society is perceived according to values.

Values gain efficiency through norms. The social norms emerge in the form of religious rules, moral rules, manners and customs, etiquette and legal rules in social life. The norms are cultural rules, which arise with the reward and punishment system and affect the individuals’ behaviors. All cultures, subcultures and groups have distinctive and specific norms that direct correct behaviors. The acts and laws, rules about clothing, games and sports, etc. all reflect social norms. These norms are based on the values of a society, where values become applicable in social life through these norms.

The concept of anomie, which refers to normlessness and irregularity, was firstly used by the Durkheim, a French sociologist, in his work “Suicide.” Durkheim defined anomie as a state of irregularity that prevents the individuals, who become incapable of knowing which norms to determine as criteria when they need to act, from integrating with society. Anomie refers to a state of normlessness and irregularity that arises in periods of social changes and irregularities, in the event that the social order deteriorates or fails to operate. In this case, people become more aggressive and depressed, resulting in an increase in violence, crime and suicide rates.

The function of law as a social concept can be listed as the following:

Guiding attitudes and shaping beliefs can be explained as part of values.

The sociology of law is undoubtedly a multi-dimensional sociological field that ought to consider an array of topics including, but not limited to: economics, race, gender, politics, and religion. The discussion would be incomplete without a thorough understanding of the importance of all social phenomena as they relate to the definition or generation of law in society

The sociology of law could be dealt with in three main sections. These sections and study areas are as follows:

Deviance is closely related to the social structure and culture from which it emerges as a social phenomenon. The social bases of deviance could be listed as follows:

It is very difficult to define deviance, because deviance is a complex concept. Deviance in the daily language means departing from a recognized path and refers to actions that do not fit the expectations and norms of a particular social group. In general terms, deviance could be defined as the visible violation of cultural norms. Since the norms direct almost all human activities, the limits of the concept of deviance are as broad as possible. For this reason, deviance encompasses the violation of group norms that are not legally expressed or are not mentioned in the law. Deviance could be rewarded, punished or accepted without penalty or reward. In general terms, deviance can be defined as the visible violation of cultural norms.

The Chicago ècole is a symbolic interactionist approach that was firstly defined by its urban sociological studies, in general sociology, and then becomes influential in criminology and is also called the environmental approach. It is the theory arguing that the human behavior is determined not by genetic and personal factors, but by the social and physical environment. Sutherland from the Chicago approach also made important contributions to the issue of deviance on the basis of the interactionist approach along with the differentiated unity approach. According to Sutherland, crime is something that is learned, just like other social phenomenan. Crime is learned in interaction with other individuals as a result of a communication process, and deviance depends on whether or not a behavior is encouraged at a certain level by others.