2: Functionalism and Youth Culture

Question 1

what do functionalists argue?

Answer 1

individuals need to be integrated into society to feel that they belong to communities and social groups (social integration). a key role of youth culture is to promote social integration for young people by offering a transitory phase of life.

Question 2

what did abrams (1959) state?

Answer 2

social changes in the 1960s enabled the creation of youth culture, through increased spending power. youth became an important part of the economy.

Question 3

what did parsons (1954) argue?

Answer 3

he argued that youth culture provides a bridge between childhood and adulthood. youth helps to “ease the difficult process of adjustment from childhood and emotional dependency to full maturity” . this transitional phase allows young people to become more detached from their parents while achieving their own independence.

Question 4

what did parsons believe the transitional phase was?

Answer 4

a rite of passage

Question 5

which theory did leech (1976) create?

Answer 5

the idea of youthquake. this is when young people become more affluent so they can adopt their own dress, behaviour and music. he warned that a youthquake might occur, which is when a big culture gap might emerge between youth and their parents. young people want to base life around fun, leisure and rebellion.

Question 6

what did eisenstadt believe about youth culture?

Answer 6

• it was an important way of binding young people into society. they would adopt a shared way of life and develop feelings of community.
• provided an outlet for tensions that young people face
• youth were caught between childhood and adulthood and they experienced anomie
• the route from childhood to adulthood is not homogenous (the same)
• seen as a way of “tension management” in which young people break away from family without having lots of stress

Question 7

what is anomie?

Answer 7

the confusion and uncertainty about the behaviour that was expected of them by society. they were stuck between childhood and adulthood.

Question 8

what is tension management?

Answer 8

the process in which young people can break away from their family gradually without having great deals of stress and tension.

Question 9

give four evaluation points for eisenstadts work.

Answer 9

1. the idea of adulthood being a homogenous grouping has been criticised. it is not clear to say “adulthood” as it is not clear what this means. it needs to be operationalised. (-)
2. disadvantage of functionalist approach is that the key concept of youth is a category that every human being must go through and is associated with physiological and psychological characteristics. (-)
3. theory unites and integrates all parts of youth and difficult times can unite all young people together. (+)
4. see young people as a homogenous age group, despite clear differences in personal taste and style between different groups of young people. (-)

Question 10

give four evaluation points for functionalism and its view on youth culture.

Answer 10

1. ignore clear differences between youth subcultures. according to marxists these differences are based on important social class differences, within society. eg. skinheads are working class, hippies are middle class (-)
2. criticised as they miss opportunity to consider youth as a state of mind which can be adopted by children and adults. for example, 40yr olds may still take part in youth activities such as rave culture. (-)
3. criticised as they don’t consider gender or ethnic related issues in any way and how this might influence youth culture and subculture. feminist sociologists would argue that gender has an important influence on youth. (-)
4. criticised as theory is based very much on same social groups as theorists ie. white, middle class, american males. research is therefore ethnocentric and biased. (-)