Deviance At Norms

Deviance at LUMS: Perceptions and Sanctions

Norms are the specific behavioral standards, ways in which people are supposed to act, paradigms for predictable behavior in society. Any violation and trespassing of these standardized norms is considered as deviant behavior. Deviance is understood to be non-conformity to the set of norms and values that are accepted by a large portion of the community (Giddens 939). It is a failure to conform to socially reinforced norms. When viewed sociologically, deviance has implications on the society by its basic factor of social construction. Hence, the underlying reason behind carrying out this research was to get a deeper understanding of student’s perceptions of deviant behavior, and their attitude
First case was of a person who was taken to the DC by an instructor who had accused the student of calling him names. The DC adjudicated over the matter and gave the student a semester off for the offence. Second case was of a student who was yelled at and verbally abused by a fellow student. In response, the former beat up the latter. This student although having started the verbal abuse, took the matter to the DC, on charges of being physically attacked. The attacker was charged with 40 work hours inside the campus. Third case was that of a student who publically passed offensive remarks to an administration personnel via student events email. A Disciplinary Committee hearing was called but the student was exonerated before the hearing upon apologizing but stopped using the public email forum again as others labeled him as the ‘email guy’. Another case that was highlighted by former DC member Adnan Khan in his interview involved two students spotted drinking on campus by a security guard in a less frequently visited part of the campus. Although both got exonerated, it sparked a debate in the DC regarding a student’s right to privacy. It was also highlighted in discussion how the famous “Tajwar” email, where she talked about what she felt about an emerging trend in LUMS which had not been brought to notice: Public Display of Affection
It was conducted among the undergraduate students only, with no participation from the masters level, and hence its application to the entire LUMS community is a generalization. The research had a large chunk of participants from sophomore year, which again adds to distortions in the projected outcomes. Moreover, an underlying assumption was made to manage a sequential trend from the findings that initially all people have similar responses towards sanctioning of deviant behavior, which changes over the course of four years at LUMS. So, a few assumptions and shortcoming have affected the results of the research. However, they do not set the findings useless. The research can still be used to analyze the situation regarding non-academic deviance at