Course: Introduction to Sociology (SOC 1) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Adeyemi
Module: Week 6 of 16 · Fall 2026 · in-person, two 75-minute sessions
Objective covered: Objective 4 — Analyze social structure, groups, deviance, and social control, applying the three perspectives to interpret patterns of rule-breaking.

This file holds two pieces: (A) the Module 6 Overview page ("Start Here") and (B) the Welcome Announcement that drips out when the module opens. Dates below assume a Tuesday/Thursday session pattern with Week 6 meeting Tue Oct 6 and Thu Oct 8, and end-of-week work due Sunday Oct 11, 11:59 p.m. Adjust the day-of-week and times to match your section.

(A) Module 6 Overview — Start Here

Welcome to Week 6: Deviance, Crime & Social Control

This is your home base for the week. Read it first, then work the checklist below from top to bottom. Everything you need is linked inside the module.

This week we take a topic everyone has an opinion about — rule-breaking, deviance, and crime — and look at it like sociologists instead of like a cable-news panel. The first surprise is that deviance is relative: the very same act can be perfectly normal in one time and place and shocking in another. The second is that deviance is broader than crime — plenty of deviance is perfectly legal, and a few crimes are widely tolerated. From there we do the signature move of the whole course: run deviance through all three perspectives and watch each one reveal something the others miss. We finish with a skill you'll use for life — reading crime statistics without being fooled by them.

The week's big question

"Why do people break rules, who gets to decide what counts as 'deviant,' and how do we read crime data without fooling ourselves?"

By Friday you'll define deviance and social control, tell deviance apart from crime, place the major theories with the theorists who built them, and read a real crime statistic carefully — knowing the difference between a rate and a count, between police data and a victimization survey, and between a correlation and a cause.

By the end of this week, you can…

Use this as a checklist. If you can do all four out loud, you're ready for the quiz.

• [ ] Define deviance and social control — deviance as a violation of a social norm (relative to time/place/culture), and social control as the sanctions (informal/formal, positive/negative) that encourage conformity — and explain why deviance is broader than crime.
• [ ] Contrast the three perspectives on deviance — functionalist (Durkheim: deviance is normal and functional; Merton's strain theory), conflict (who has the power to define and enforce deviance), and interactionist (labeling — Becker; differential association — Sutherland).
• [ ] Use the strain-theory and labeling vocabulary — Merton's five modes (conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism, rebellion) and primary vs. secondary deviance — and place each theory with its theorist.
• [ ] Read crime data carefully — distinguish a rate from a count, UCR (police-reported) from NCVS (victimization survey), and explain a reporting effect and why a correlation in crime stats does not establish a cause.

What's due this week, and when

Work these in order — each one gets you ready for the next.

Heads-up on the AI tools: you'll use a chatbot to draft and explain, and then you judge its work. Chatbots routinely garble this week's content — they'll credit strain theory to Durkheim (it's Merton), confuse labeling with differential association, or — most dangerous here — invent a crime statistic or treat a correlation ("more police, more reported crime") as a cause. Catching the model is the point — and it's the whole skill the Workshops build.

Late policy reminder: 10% off per day late. If life happens, reach out before the deadline — I'd much rather hear from you early.

How to succeed this week

• Lead with the idea, not the jargon. Deviance is just breaking a norm; social control is just how groups keep us in line; strain is just wanting the prize but having the ladder kicked away. Vocabulary comes after the idea clicks.
• Memorize two tiny hooks. "Crime breaks a law; deviance breaks a norm — and norms are bigger than laws." And for the theories: "Durkheim: deviance is useful · Merton: blocked goals · Becker: it's the label · Sutherland: it's learned."
• Keep the three lenses moving. Take one example — shoplifting, jaywalking, a viral "challenge" — and force one sentence per perspective. Filling all three is the whole skill.
• Be a careful reader of numbers. A crime count is not a rate; "reported to police" is not "all crime"; and two trends moving together is not proof one caused the other. This is the load-bearing habit of the Workshop.
• Treat the topic with care. We study crime non-sensationally, as social scientists — looking for patterns and structures, never for shock value or stereotypes.

You don't need any background for this week — just a willingness to question the snap judgments we all make about "deviant" people. Come to class ready to argue about whether a society could (or should) ever be completely free of deviance. See you Tuesday.

(B) Welcome Announcement — Module 6

Release setting: post on the module's start day (offset = 0 days), i.e., Tue Oct 6, 2026 — not before. If your platform won't preserve the scheduled date on import, post this as a draft labeled "Release: Tue Oct 6."

Subject: Welcome to Week 6 — who decides what counts as "deviant"? 🔍

Hi everyone, and welcome to Week 6!

Quick warm-up: picture a visible tattoo, a glass of wine, spitting on the sidewalk, and a loud public protest. Which of those is "deviant"? You'll find the room disagrees — because the honest answer is always "it depends on the time, the place, and the culture." That's the first big idea of the week: deviance is relative. It isn't a fixed property of an act; it's a social judgment about an act in context. And here's the second: deviance is broader than crime — plenty of rule-breaking is perfectly legal.

This week — Deviance, Crime & Social Control — we tackle the big question: Why do people break rules, who gets to decide what counts as deviant, and how do we read crime data without fooling ourselves? This is one of our signature three-perspective weeks: we'll run deviance through the functionalist lens (Durkheim: deviance is normal and even useful; Merton's strain theory), the conflict lens (who has the power to define and punish deviance?), and the interactionist lens (Becker's labeling; Sutherland's differential association).

Four things not to miss:
1. Lecture Tutorial 6 — work through the three theories and the crime-data skills with one approved chatbot (Gemini, Claude, or ChatGPT) and submit the share link. You'll catch the model crediting strain theory to the wrong person or inventing a crime stat. Due Sun Oct 11.
2. Quiz 6, Discussion 6, and Assignment 6 also close Sun Oct 11 — the discussion ("Is deviance sometimes functional?") is a quick AI dialogue you summarize and post, so start early and leave time to reply to classmates.
3. Workshop 6 — "Read the Crime Data" — this week's workshop is in DATA mode: you'll interpret a real crime statistic from an authoritative source (the FBI's UCR, the BJS victimization survey, or Our World in Data), then fact-check an AI's reading of it. The whole point is to never confuse a count with a rate, or a correlation with a cause. Due Sun Oct 11.
4. Open the Start Here page first — it lays out everything in order with due dates.

One promise: we treat this topic the way social scientists do — analytically and non-sensationally, looking for patterns and structures, never trading in shock or stereotypes. By Friday, the next time a headline shouts that "crime is exploding," you'll know exactly which questions to ask before you believe it.

Bring your curiosity (and a willingness to be surprised by Durkheim) to class on Tuesday.

See you soon,
Prof. Adeyemi