Social Deviance

Deviance is exhibited in many forms throughout society. The folkway violation or social deviance I selected was to attend my daughter ballet class on Saturday with my hair painted bright pink. The reaction at the dance school varied from acceptance to laughter so I decide to go to Target for some Christmas shopping to see how strangers would react. This experiment ended up being complex because norms vary considerably across groups, times, and places. In other words, what one group may consider acceptable, another may consider deviant.

I found that the statement from the textbook "No thought or action is inherently deviant; it becomes deviant only in relation to particular norms" (p. 197) could not be more true. I felt a little nervous as my daughter and I entered the dance school, few heads turned as the door slammed shut with the wind. Those that did were mostly adolescents waiting for class to start. As we entered, the lobby with greetings of hello more people turned to respond and began to notice my hair color. The students in their teens responded with a quick hello and a generalized comment of cool hair color. The adults varied from are you going to a party, some kind of a show, or what happened to your hair. The smaller children had more of a reaction that anyone, most with laughter and snickers about pink hair. After socializing for a period it came out that, I was doing an experiment for my Sociology class and the notes I was taking were for a paper. Following the initial response, people ignored the fact that my hair was pink and conversations returned to the normal Saturday discussions. I decided that in a familiar environment I could not get the full effect from the experiment and decided to go to Target.

Walking through the busy parking lot, I felt more uncomfortable right away, as I noticed that those who were not self-absorbed usually took a double look however; I could not hear any comments. As we walked through the store, I heard several criticizing comments about me being too old to