Edwin M. Lemert (May 8, 1912 – November 10, 1996) was a

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...

professor at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...

. Lemert was born in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. He acquired his bachelor's degree in sociology from

Miami University Miami University (informally Miami of Ohio or simply Miami) is a public research university in Oxford, Ohio. The university was founded in 1809, making it the second-oldest university in Ohio (behind Ohio University, founded in 1804) and the ...

(class of 1934) and his doctorate from

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

(class of 1939). He distinctly specialized in sociology and anthropology. For a short period of time he became a professor at Kent State and at Western Michigan Universities. Even with all of the other sociologists back then, Lemert was able to view how most of the social acts are viewed as deviant acts. While studying

drug addiction Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to engage in certain behaviors, one of which is the usage of a drug, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use oft ...

, he admired a powerful force at work. Beside the physical changes due to the addiction and all of the economic issues it can cause, there was an immense process of learning one's identity and justifying every action, "I do these things because I am this way." Activities such as drinking and/or shoplifting do not reflect on an individual's personality. Lemert once wrote: "His acts are repeated and organized subjectively and transformed into active roles and become the social criteria for assigning status.....When a person begins to employ his deviant behavior or a role based on it as a means of defense, attack, or adjustment to the overt and covert problems created by the consequent societal reaction to him, his deviation is secondary".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lemert, Edwin 1912 births 1996 deaths American sociologists Kent State University faculty Miami University alumni Ohio State University alumni Educators from Cincinnati University of California faculty Western Michigan University faculty

See also

References