Deviance is a normal phenomenon in human society. Every social organization, for example, a family, a community or a nation, has a certain way of life that is seen as normal. People are expected to follow a certain path which is perceived as the right one by their social organization. Not all people, however, meet the expectations of the general social organization. Some people break the rules. Some make their own paths to lead to them to the same destination of the set goals. Others ignore the societal goals and make their own. According to Merton's Stain theory argues that it is impossible for all people to follow the same path due to the unfairness in the distribution of resources. The means for attaining the goals set by the society are not equally distributed to everyone, therefore, causing some people to strain.
Merton argues that people respond to the strain in five different ways. The first way is through conformity whereby one chooses to strive through the socially approved means and attain the culturally set goals. The second way is through innovation whereby one comes up with their own socially unapproved ways but pursues the culturally set goals. The third way is through ritualism whereby one chooses to go by the socially approved means but attain less elusive goals. Fourthly is retreatism whereby one finds a way of escaping both the means and goals the society has set, and lastly is rebellion whereby one opposes the socially approved means and goals and works on coming up with others. The last four ways of responding to strain all portray deviant behavior (Paternoster & Mazerolle, 1994).
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The discussion in this paper will be about a traditional white family with children who portray deviant behavior. In the typical traditional well-off white family, the parent holds highly regarded professions. The mother is a lawyer and the father a professor. The family also has a Christian background, goes to church and therefore expected to live by the Christian teachings and values. The children, however, portray behavior that is quite the opposite of what is expected of them. The firstborn is a daughter. She is expected to work hard in school, get good grades, go to college and acquire a highly perceived profession like her parents. The girl, however, develops an interest in music, drops out of school and runs away from home to pursue her interest. She does not keep in touch with her parents because they do not support her choice of pursuing music but instead want her to go back to school, join college, and become a doctor, a lawyer, a professor or things like that. The girl eventually succeeds in building a great musical career. As if that's not enough, she abandons her religion because its teachings are against her sexuality. She is gay and she marries a black girl, something that her white traditional parents may never approve.
The second born is a boy. In the early days of his life, he is a loner. He is not good with class work and therefore gets a lot of criticism from his parents. He eventually finds friends but unfortunately, they influence him into drug abuse. It takes his busy parents quite a while to realize that their son needs help. By the time they know it, it is too late. The boy dies of an overdose. Although broken, the third born chooses to conformity. Remaining as the only hope of making the parents happy, the third born chooses to stay in school and try to build a highly perceived profession like the parents.
In his work structural functionalism, Talcott Parsons asserts that for social structures are built of the interactions and relationships between their actors (Friedman & Allen, 2010). In his AGIL model, Parson explores four basic functions that a social system must perform in order for it to persist. The first function he states is adaption, the second is goal attainment, the third is integration and the forth is latency. In the above-described family, the deviant behaviors of the children made it impossible for their social organization to perform some of the functions it needs to perform so as to persist. The firstborn's choices to pursue music, move out of the home and marry a black girl made it impossible for the subunits of the small social organization to coordinate or rather to stay in solidarity. This is because her parents did not approve of her choices and she could not let them control her life. The integration function of their family was therefore impacted by her deviation. The two first children' deviant behavior also made it impossible for their small social organization to perform its goal attainment function. A family is supposed to attain goals such as loving and caring for one another, staying in unity, giving advice to one another, spending time together and helping each other through difficult times. The above-discussed family seems to have failed terribly as far as the goal attainment function is concerned. Besides being broken, the family ended up losing one of their own through a drug overdose.
References
Friedman, B. D., Allen, K. N. (2010). Systems Theory. Sage Publications . Retrieved from https://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/32947_Chapter1.pdf
Paternoster, R., Mazerolle, P. (1994). General Strain Theory and Delinquency.
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency , vol: 31 (3), page(s): 235-263
