Sociology of Social Control

This unit is interested in the regulation of normal and ‘deviant’ citizens, including corporate citizens, in contemporary Western societies. Interrogating the claim that both normality and deviance are 'managed', students are introduced to the ways in which deviance and normality has been thought about, identified and acted upon. Students are introduced to sociological analyses of deviance, and to questions concerning the contribution of sociological investigation to the work of social regulation. Broad topic areas explore normality and deviance in popular culture, and through medicalisation and crime and justice.