Labeling Theory and Ethnomethodology

(these ideas drawn from Goode, 1994-2008 chapter 4; and Pfohl, Images of Deviance and Social Control, 1985. See the disclaimer)

Theoretical Perspective rooted in Symbolic Interactionism

• The Definition of the Situation.
• Verstehen (insiders view, Goode, "On Behalf of Labeling Theory").
• Action is based on meaning, Meaning is created through interaction, Meaning is continually modified and interpreted.
• Focus on the situational dynamics out of which meaning emerges.
• Social Response

Focus:

• The How rather than the Why.
• Process.
• Negotiated reality.
• Not the act or the actor per se, but what surrounds and follows.
• Social history of labels: In a fluid and pluralistic society, who and what is considered deviant is constantly changing.
• Construction and application of labels: Moral Entrepreneurs, Official Agents of Control, and Organizational Structure.
• Consequences of Labeling.

Key Contributors

George Herbert Mead (1934): "The self as a social product."

Frank Tannenbaum (1938): differential perspectives and "Tagging."

Edwin Lemert (1951): Primary and Secondary Deviance.

• Secondary deviance as a dynamic, interactional product; a response to societal reaction.
• Societal reaction initiates sociological/psychological processes which sustain deviance, make it more central in the life of the "deviant."
• Impact on self-concept.
• Begins moral "career."
• Leads to the formation of sub-culture and learning processes.
• Power to resist the impact of the label is differentially stratified throughout society. Impacts some groups more than others.
• Lemert: "Paranoia and the Dynamics of Exclusion"

Core Elements of the Labeling Perspective

• Audiences: Reiss-- the role of witnesses in police arrest decision making.
• Contingencies: Extra-behavioral factors
  1. Indexicality (see also)
  2. Chambliss: The Saints and the Roughnecks-- Social Class.
  3. Defining Mental Disorder: Gender, Urban/rural.
  4. Bias.
  5. Piliavin and Briar: Demeanor -only 2 of 45 deferential youths arrested vs. 14 of 21 antag.
  6. Derek Phillips: Help seeking behavior and social distance.

• Retrospective Interpretation (1) (2) (3)
• Reflexivity (see also)
1. "Looking-Glass Self"
2. Sense of the Situation
3. Self-fulfilling Prophecy
4. Documentary Interpretation (past records, etc. ==>present reality) (see also)
5. Would you hire this guy? (schwartz and Skolnick in 1962, and Buikhuisen and Dijksterhuis in 1971, see Liska, page 126-7)

Ethnomethodology:

Forms the foundation for understanding how deviant labels are constructed as a "practical accomplishment" in everyday interactions.

• Methods people use to accomplish a reasonable account of what is happening in a social interaction, how we make sense out of people and their actions. How we create a structure for our interactions.
• By categorizing certain people in certain situations as deviant, we assume (create) the reality of the norms and they reflexively produce the deviant reality of the emerging situation.
• Typifications: common sense constructs through which we organize our perceptions of others and the world.

Cicourel, "Good and Bad Boys"

1. Good Boys- Act does not equal a cue, good boy in bad situation, "normal" misbehavior.
2. Bad Boy- Act is a cue, reveals underlying problem, bad situation (home, school) produces bad boys, "serious" problem that needs handling.

Rosenhahn: Being Sane in Insane Places

Phillips: Help Seeking Behavior

Sudnow: Normal Crimes

1. Typification used by PD to organize a variety of offenses of a given class into homogeneous categories in order to efficiently process cases (plea bargain)
2. PD's as overworked, understaffed, part of a "Court Room Work Group."
3. Premise: If arrested, then must be guilty of something, therefore needs to be punished. Plea Bargain satisfies both parties.

• Sense Making Activities

Harvey Sacks:

1. Rule of Economy: Once categorized, we resist other interpretations of behavior.
2. Rule of Consistency: Once categorized we will organize past and future behavior in line with the new category (retrospective interpretation)
• Peyrot (1995) and making the MMPI fit (see Liska, 1999, pages 164-165).

Focus on Organizations and Professional Interests

How the structure of the organization impacts the defining process

Douglas: Suicide

1. Medical Examiners and Coroners
2. Politics and vested interest
3. Statistics as key to understanding organization of social control rather than the "objective reality" of deviant behavior.
4. Statistics produced by organizations become a topic of study in their own right.

Other organizational studies:

1. Wilson: Police departments- Large and bureaucratic vs. Small and informal.
2. Index Crimes vs. White Collar
3. Shoplifting/employee fraud
4. Mental Disorder: Male vs. Female
5. Breast feeding: Leleche vs DFS

Cognitive Deviance

Conflict Theory