Social Control and Deviance A South Asian Community in Scotland

This title was first published in 2000: This book provides an empirical account of social control and deviance in a South Asian community in Scotland. Focusing on Edinburgh’s Pakistani community, the book examines the social order of this particular community and the ways it is maintained. It explores the various social institutions and processes that operate as mechanisms of (informal) social control within the community. This book also examines the ways the second generation South Asians relate to their community and the extent to which they conform, or deviate from its norms. Criminological social control theory is used as an analytical framework for explaining deviance. It is concluded that the South Asian youngsters (boys) who have weak / broken bonds with their community are more likely to deviate from its norms. The book further concludes that social control and deviance are intricately interrelated. While social control defines what is deviance, the latter has important implications for the former: repeated occurrence of deviance prompts agencies of social control to redefine and gradually normalize deviance.

Contents: General Introduction. Social Control: Migration, exclusion and the making of a ’closed community’; The family and the Biraderi; The mosque and the Pakistan Association, Edinburgh and the East of Scotland. Deviance: The Pilrig boys and deviance; Attachment; Commitment, involvement and belief; Summaries and conclusions; Bibliography; Index.

Ali Wardak