SOCIOLOGY - YOUTH SUBCULTURES

Lury

-features of consumer culture
1.wide range of things available
2.shopping is seen as leisure pursuit
3.diff forms of shopping available e.g. internet
4.debt is seen as a norm
5.package and promotion is a big business

Polemus

Supermarket of style - Individuals can pick and choose how they want to identify and what they want to identify themselves with.

Thornton

Claims that the media is largely responsible for youth culture as young people's subcultural capital comes from it.

Nyak

White Wannabees- White Working class males who adopt black culture

Johal

Many young British Asians are actually creating their own hybrid identities which he calls Brasian. Brasians might value the religious beliefs of their parents as important, but may reject some cultural traditions such as arranged marriage or restrictions on drinking.

Abrams

Education is a cushion to help young people transition to adulthood E.g. Butler Act increased school leaving age, expanding the period of youth

Brake

Suggests that the spectacular subcultures were 'magical' symbolic solutions with no practical application to change things.

Thornton

Argues because girls had less disposable income, married earlier, and earned less than males - the teenage market became dominated by males - Girls invested more time into school, whilst boys invested time and money into music and going out - Less subcultural capital

McRobbie

Argues girls are reclaiming their sexuality and creating their own subculture - They can now critique and laugh at magazines instead of passively accepting this content
Girls can challenge sexist and typical views of women and use it to assert their own identity.

Reddington

Argues there have been very active members of spectacular subcultures such as Vivenne Westwood - Punk has been based on egalitarian ideas that anyone can do and so never excluded women - It offered girls an outlet if they were not interested in secretarial college or getting married.

McRobbie and Garber - Bedroom Culture

Critical of the CCS for ignoring girls.
Girls were still restricted by expectations of early marriage , had less freedom and had stricter social control.
Found that girls established more close relationships amongst each other, in which they spent time in each others bedrooms experimenting with fashion, cosmetics, gossiping about boys, listening to pop music and reading magazines. This was described as the 'Bedroom Culture' or 'Teenybopper'
Could be seen as a form of resistance around girl's anxieties around sexual interaction.

Holland's

Argues that there has been an increase in the number of women in the city at night, finding that women go out more often and would feel worse if restricted by males - They go out in gangs to mimic local men

Blackman

Conducted an ethnographic study of different subcultural styles in a school. He called one group the 'New Wave Girls' who were popular, academic, interested in punk and new wave music, wore Doc Martin boots and resisted parental control.
They were anti-school but not anti-education.

McRobbie and Garber

A Feminist sociologist. Argued that many sociological studies of youth subcultures reinforce stereotypes of females being 'passive girlfriends' (Passive = accepting or allowing what happens or what others do, without active response or resistance).
Researchers were mostly male which suggested they developed a rapport with their male subjects and as it was taboo to relate to teenage girls around.
Argue that girls friendship groups are very close knit and aren't as expansive
Previous theories of youth applied to male subcultures but were then presented to represent all which might not necessarily apply to girls.

Hebdige - Reggae culture

Saw the culture as a resistance to white culture and racism with roots in slavery.

McRobbie - Reggae girls

Considers the intersection of gender with ethnicity, when she discusses black ragga girls, who use music to dance in sexually explicit ways, ridiculing male sexism and opening up their own cultural space.
Ironic in a way, since the music they dance to is sexist in lyrics.
Girls are able to challenge the music reclaim their sexuality and use it to assert their own identities.

Cashmore

Study on gangsta rap argues that rap can be seen as the ultimate hybrid form, which has many styles and no obvious point of origin - Charts music style in Jamaica, New York and worldwide and how local artists modify it to adapt their own culture.

Vale and Juno

Modern Primitives - Characterised by body modifications, tattoos, and piercings are seen as self expression and simpler way of life.
Reaction to a sense of powerlessness in a fast changing and regaining power.

Hutnyk

Believes cultural borrowing is better called cultural appropriation. He argues that individuals should not steal from other cultures as this devalues the symbolism of their cultural products.
E.g. Dreadlocks are rooted in resistance to white supremacy and slavery so white people can't wear them.

Maffesoli

Suggested that youth subcultures have now ceased to exist for young people, and instead they have been replaced by neo tribes and used this term to describe a wide range of groupings, all of which share a commitment to a communal ethic of warmth and friendship

Luke and Luke

Argue that today our culture is derived from media that is global in nature, and no longer national or local - Thus, hybridised youth culture where youth take elements from global cultures featured in media. - E.g. Kpop

Thornton - Club Cultures

No single culture but cluster of cultures related to dance and rave - They are taste cultures with key definer being shared music style and dance culture surrounding it
Clubbers use subcultural capital to gain status and distinguish themselves from those who are just mainstream followers as more authentic - Media is a source of subcultural capacity.

Hollands and Chatterson

Rather than neo tribes being a free floating pick n mix story of youth consumption - Majority of youth activity is characterised by commercial chart music, drinking culture, and pleasure seeking behaviour.

Archer and Yamashita

Studied boys in inner city London who showed norms and values that were anti school and anti education

Nightingale

Studied young black males in Philadelphia - They consumed mainstream US culture such as consumerism but as they were excluded from participating in it, they turned to illegitimate means of gaining it.

Harding

Girls use social skills to carve out their own role - Will never become leaders, but can become fixers and boys will see it as 'girls business'
Violence, especially sexual violence is used as means of keeping them in line.

Bourgois

Studied Latino and African-American drug dealers in a wealthy region of New York; he argues that growing up poor in a rich neighbourhood creates anguish that leads to people turning to deviant subcultures.
They were highly ambitious and motivated, and drug dealing was their way of surviving and achieving respect. He saw it as understandable that these youths didn't work for minimum wage when there was a million-dollar industry on their doorstep.

Sewell

For black males, the culture of the streets is anti education - valuing style and instant gratification and seeing educational success as feminine.

Mac an Ghail

'Young, gifted and black'
3 subcultures based on gender, and ethnicity

Mirza

Identified a more pro education attitude among Afro-Caribbean girls who resented teacher labels, racism and the expectation of failure - They adopted strategic realisation of what they perceive to be wasteful and unproductive lesson time

Decker and Van Winkle

Argues youth join gangs because of 'pulls' and 'pushes. Pulls = attractiveness of gangs (status/money/thrill). Pushes = exclusion pushes youth from underclass to status gang provide. Fear of violence pushes youth towards gangs can provide protection and gaining things that society hasn't given them

Katz and Lyng

Katz claims the pleasure of committing crime has been overlooked. Pleasure of committing crime is derived from the actual act of offending or 'transgression'. Doing evil is motivated by the quest of a 'moral self-transcendence' in the face of boredom. Creating a male identity is difficult in contemp. society, and many males are in a state of drift, and any event which gives identity is welcomed.
Lyng argues much crime is 'edgework', as it's located on the edge between the thrill of getting away with it and the danger of being punished.
W: only a small minority of crimes motivated by boredom and thrill seeking. There are many other motivations, such as economic gain and frustration.