Advanced Studies in Deviance and Social Control
SOCY 475
400-Level Courses
Fall 2026
3 Units
In-person
3
one-way Exclusions
Seminar, private study
Please note that course information listed in the Arts and Science Course Calendar supersedes any information listed on the Sociology website.
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Course Description
Critical study of theories and practices of social control in Canada and comparable societies insofar as they are implemented by law or regulation and rely on coercion; main agencies of social control and assumptions of their operation emphasized.
Learning Outcomes
- Students are able to articulate the range of questions addressed by sociologists who are interested in the study of deviance. Students acquire an understanding of the variety of ways in which the sociological study of deviance is important and relevant and can apply this knowledge to real life situations.
- Students are able to trace the historical origins of contemporary theoretical accounts of deviant behaviour and to distinguish the two broad explanatory approaches - the classical school and the positivist school. Students are able to demonstrate how these early explanations of deviant behaviour continue to influence modern thought on the subject.
- Students can compare and contrast the major sociological approaches to the study of deviant behaviour including strain, cultural, and social control theories. They develop a comparative understanding of the degree to which these perspectives are supported by empirical evidence. They are also able to describe the major limitations characteristic of each perspective.
- Students can think critically about popular ways of defining deviance and recognize the uniqueness of a sociological approach. They are able to compare and contrast the two dominant sociological conceptualizations of deviance and they become familiar with a working definition of deviance and social control which allows them to address a range of relevant and important questions.
- Students learn to discuss the processes by which people come to be labelled as deviants and why some people are more vulnerable to deviant labels than others. Students understand some of the more important concepts that are used to describe the labelling process, including stereotyping and retrospective interpretation. Students can render meaningful the ways in which stigmatized people cope with the attributions of disreputability made about them.
- Students understand the major variations of feminist thought relevant to the study of crime and deviance and they can demonstrate how feminist thought can be viewed as both a critique of and a complement to more traditional explanations of crime and deviance.
- Students understand the role that empirical research plays in the sociological study of deviance and they are able to analyze some of the unique problems that arise in the course of the empirical investigation of deviance. Students develop an understanding of how the major research methods employed by sociologists contribute to the scholarly literature on deviance.
- Through an examination of claims-making processes students learn to think critically about the taken-for-granted character of deviance, crime, law, and social control. Students learn the extent to which moral meaning is problematic. Students also acquire an understanding of the dominant theories of conflict within which the process of claims-making can be situated.