Social Pathology, Degeneracy, and Medicalization

Reading Assignment 4

Social Pathology, Degeneracy and Medicalization

Introduction, Tammy L. Anderson /

Social Pathology: A Systematic Approach to the Theory of Sociopathic Behavior, Edwin Lemert /

Whatever Happened to Social Pathology? Conceptual Fashions and the Sociology of Deviance, Joel Best /

The Shifting Engines of Medicalization, Peter Conrad / 17. Connections: Mental Illness as Degeneracy and Disease, Victor Perez, Critical Thinking Questions /

Points Possible: 20

Deliverable Length: 2-3 pages

Answer two questions:

1. 1.  Define and differentiate between Anderson’s use of the concepts degeneracy and medicalization (pp. 170-171). Do you agree with Anderson that social pathology has limited use in the study of society and deviance?  Why or why not?

2.   Summarize Lemert’s treatment of psychological/psychiatric and sociological approaches to the study of sociopathic behavior (pp.176-177).

1. 3.    Best claims that social pathology as a viable concept “gradually fell out of style” by the 1960s, replaced by a more relativistic emphasis on deviance. Then he makes a similar argument for the “death” of the concept of deviance in the present day.  Summarize his three principles of deviance definition (pp. 181-182) which are now debated as inadequate to the task.