Sociology A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

self-and-identity

• He loses his job, wife, children, home… though he continues to deny his guilt he finds a society of people who admired rather than despised supposed crimes.

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• The distinction between the roles we play and some underlying self — some roles are more absorbing than others; describing someone as a clergyman says far more than bus driver.

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obedience-and-authority

• Acts of social definition or labelling are actually the source of criminality, not merely the discovery of a pre-existing property of original acts.

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• Police ask not only 'Has an offence been committed?' but 'Is this person a typical offender?' — crime is not simply what breaks the law.

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ambition-and-status

• Working-class children begin with low expectations, aspire to parents' jobs, and their virtues may be overlooked because teachers quickly form an estimation.

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• Only a black person can really understand what it means to be black — often simply a way of asserting moral superiority, offered only on one's own behalf.

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