
What are we doing today?
Learning more theories of deviance
Evidence of engagement:
- Participation on discussion boards
- Email work as per instructions
What is this leading to?
Deviance essay (end of week 3)
Lesson details:
- C.S Lewis quote
TASK: Please read the C.S Lewis quote (tweeted by Julia Baird) from the last blog post, and answer the following questions on the padlet discussion board:
a) What do you think C.S Lewis is saying about power and deviance in society?
b) What example(s) in Australian society support C.S Lewis’ statement?
Click here to post your answers to our discussion board (this will be used as evidence of engagement)
2. Delving deeper into the theories
So far, we have learnt the following theories:
Durkheim’s (late 1800s) Functionalist perspective of deviance
Merton’s (1968) Structural Strain theory (also called Anomie theory)
Sutherland’s (1939) Differential Association theory (also called Cultural Transmission theory)
A. Cohen’s (1955) Delinquent Subculture theory
Let’s delve deeper into Sutherland’s and A.Cohen’s theories. We will start with Sutherland:
Click here to watch a refresher I made on Sutherland’s theory
You can also go to pg. 10-11 of your Deviance reader (see earlier posts if you don’t have this downloaded) to read about Sutherland.
TASK: Watch the following parts of the ABC Four Corners ‘Kids Doing Time’ (2009) documentary
0.00 – 15.00
28.28 – 34.00
Click here to access the ABC Four Corners Kids Doing Time (2009) documentary.
Questions (send your answers to me via email – this can be photos of your written work in your book or it can be typed into the email). Your answers do not need to be highly polished – but I will use them as evidence of engagement.
a) Explain how Sutherland’s theory might explain the experiences of some of those featured in this documentary (draw on quotes from the documentary).
b) Apart from simply learning criminal behaviour, what other reasons might there be for these young people entering the criminal justice system?
c) Find out what is meant by the word ‘marginalised/marginalisation’ and write a 50 word explanation of what it means.
This term ‘marginalisation’ leads to another important theory: A. Cohen’s Delinquent Subculture theory
Click here to watch a refresher I made on Delinquent Subculture theory
You can also go to pg. 19 of your Deviance reader (see earlier posts if you don’t have this downloaded) to read about A.Cohen’s theory.
TASK: Read the following extracts from the van Krieken et al (2017) textbook and respond to the questions below on the group discussion board (link provided below)






a) Briefly explain how A. Cohen’s theory links to this information.
b) S. Cohen (1972) developed Moral Panic theory to explain the construction of deviance. How does his theory provide a different understanding of youth and crime in Australia? *Pg. 22 to 26 of the Deviance reader explains this theory.
Click here to post your answers to our discussion board (this will be used as evidence of engagement)
Remember I am available between 10.30-12.30 and 1.30-2.30 to answer questions (send me an email)