Indiana Social Studies S.10.4

Social StudiesGrades 9–12Deviance and Social Control

The Standard

Identify deviant subcultures.

2026 Indiana Academic Standards: K-12 Social Studies

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students identify groups with shared habits or values that break a community's rules or expectations. They name the group practice and the expectation it challenges. They tell a group apart from one person breaking a rule.
What Mastery Looks Like: A student can identify a street racing crew from evidence of regular meetings and shared racing rules. They can explain why a lone speeder is not a subculture. They know that breaking a social expectation is not always a crime.
Common Misconceptions: Students may count any single rule breaker as a subculture. They may assume unusual clothes prove a group is deviant, or that deviance always means crime.
How to Assess It: Exit ticket: A street racing crew meets weekly, sets race rules, and races on public roads. A lone driver speeds once. Which is a deviant subculture, and what shared practice and public rule support your answer?

Lesson moves

Have pairs sort four cards, street racing crew, lone speeder, 1970s punk scene, and chess club, by group practices and community expectations.
Ask, 'Could a 1970s punk scene seem deviant in one community but not another? Which expectations would change the answer?'
Play evidence bingo with case cards; students mark shared practices, repeated group activity, and a community norm before choosing a subculture.
Read a city street-racing ordinance and a news account of a racing crew; students mark the public rule and shared group practices.

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