Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Historical Foundations of Labelling
- Conceptual Core: How Labelling Works
- Power Relations and the Production of Deviance
- Institutional Arenas of Labelling
- Intersectionality and Differential Labelling
- Global and Digital Transformations
- Critical Reflections and Theoretical Extensions
- Pedagogical and Policy Implications
- Conclusion
Introduction
Labelling theory is a cornerstone of sociological approaches to deviance, crime, and social control. Formulated in the early 1960s, the perspective redirected scholarly inquiry away from the supposed deficiencies of “deviant” individuals and toward the cultural processes by which certain acts, identities, or populations are designated as problematic. Its foundational insight is deceptively simple: actions are not inherently deviant; they become deviant only after they are publicly defined and reacted to as such.
Yet the simple insight carries profound implications. Every time a police officer chooses whether to make an arrest, a teacher writes an evaluative remark in a pupil’s file, or a digital platform assigns a risk score to a user, a label is conferred. Labels do more than describe; they prescribe normative expectations, limit opportunities, and reshape self-identities. They are discursive instruments wielded within unequal power relations, often reinforcing existing hierarchies of class, race, gender, and coloniality.
This article introduces undergraduate readers to the historical development, conceptual machinery, and contemporary extensions of labelling theory. Emphasis is placed on the centrality of power—the capacity to define reality for others and to have that definition stick. We will examine how labels are generated, institutionalised, resisted, and transformed across a range of arenas, from the criminal justice system to algorithmic decision‑making. The goal is to provide readers with a critical vocabulary for analysing everyday acts of naming and to outline the policy implications of recognising that words can wound as well as heal.
Historical Foundations of Labelling
Symbolic Interactionism and the Chicago School
The intellectual roots of labelling theory lie in the symbolic‑interactionist tradition cultivated at the University of Chicago. George Herbert Mead and Herbert Blumer argued that the self emerges from interaction; meanings are negotiated rather than pre‑given. Howard S. Becker’s Outsiders (1963) extended this insight to deviance: “deviance is not a quality of the act but a consequence of the application of rules.” Becker’s fieldwork with jazz musicians and marijuana smokers demonstrated that rule enforcement is selective, contingent, and deeply political.
Edwin Lemert complemented Becker’s work by distinguishing between primary deviance—the often minor rule transgression that precedes social reaction—and secondary deviance—behaviour that arises as a defence or adaptation to the problems created by societal reaction. Lemert’s formulation highlighted the cumulative impact of official intervention: once labelled, individuals find legitimate opportunities foreclosed, thereby nudging them toward deviant groups and identities.
From Etiology to Social Reaction
Earlier criminological paradigms treated deviance as an objective fact requiring causal explanation—biology, psychology, or social disorganisation. Labelling theorists inverted the problematic: why are certain behaviours singled out for condemnation, and why are particular populations targeted for control? This shift from etiology to social reaction foregrounded the politics of rule enforcement, prompting new empirical questions about discretionary policing, prosecutorial selectivity, and media sensationalism. By relocating deviance from the psyche of rule‐breakers to the practices of rule‑makers, labelling theory recast the sociology of deviance as a study of power.
Conceptual Core: How Labelling Works
The Three Moments of Labelling
At its most elementary, labelling involves three interlocking moments:
- Definition – cultural demarcation of certain actions or statuses as rule‑breaking or socially problematic.
- Attribution – assignment of a deviant category (e.g., “criminal,” “truant,” “benefits cheat”) to a particular person or group.
- Institutionalisation – embedding of that category in organisational records, legal codes, and everyday discourse, thereby extending the label’s effects across time and social space.
Because these moments unfold within unequal power relations, the key sociological question is not what was done but whose interpretation prevails.
Stigma and Spoiled Identity
Erving Goffman’s analysis of stigma complements labelling theory by examining the experiential aftermath of designation. A “spoiled” identity restricts access to valued social roles, exposes individuals to discrimination, and engenders anticipatory shame. Stigma is context‑dependent: body modifications that signal creativity in one milieu may trigger censure in another. The power to stigmatise rests on culturally variable moral boundaries buttressed by organisational routines and media narratives.
Secondary Deviance and Self‑Fulfilling Prophecy
Once publicly stigmatised, individuals often reorganise their self‑concept around the deviant role. Lemert’s concept of secondary deviance captures this feedback loop: surveillance intensifies, legitimate opportunities contract, and deviant careers may solidify. Robert Merton’s self‑fulfilling prophecy provides a complementary mechanism. When institutional actors treat a labelled person as irredeemable, that person may internalise the role and behave in ways that confirm the expectation. What begins as a social judgement can harden into a biographical destiny.
Power Relations and the Production of Deviance
Who Has the Authority to Label?
Authority to label is unevenly distributed. While everyday interaction makes labels stick, certain actors possess structural power enabling their definitions to travel widely and endure:
- Legislators who codify prohibitions.
- Police, prosecutors, and judges who exercise discretionary enforcement.
- Journalists and media executives who curate narratives that crystallise public opinion.
Because these institutional positions are themselves shaped by class, race, gender, and colonial legacies, the likelihood of being labelled is stratified. The same act—possession of cannabis—may be romanticised as youthful experimentation in a privileged neighbourhood but criminalised as moral degradation in a marginalised one. The authority to label is therefore the authority to allocate honour and shame, inclusion and exclusion.
Moral Entrepreneurs and Agenda‑Setting
“Moral entrepreneurs” are individuals or organisations that campaign to create, modify, or enforce norms. Their success depends on resources, alliances, and cultural resonance. The anti‑opium crusades of the nineteenth century transformed Chinese labourers into folk devils, legitimating exclusionary laws and racial violence. Contemporary initiatives against “fake news” follow a similar logic: by framing alternative media producers as existential threats to democracy, they justify restrictive policies that recentralise information control.
